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Scott Kleeb forsees a solution to many problems in reducing our dependency on foreign oil.

Question: What would be your focus in combatting the war on terrorism?

Transcript: I do think that, it comes down to energy; it really comes down to energy. I think that this is a driver, not just on national security but it’s also on economics, it’s on job creation, it’s on the environment and environmental issues going forward. It’s also on a real rebirth on American industry and a real rebirth in American innovation in science and technology. It’s going to be for us what the 1958 National Defense Education Act was when we felt we are losing the space race, and Eisenhower proposed not a targeted program on the space race only, he invested in education wholesale and the spin-offs that resulted from that early investment in education from… I mean, you know, grade school clear through college education, really launched a new era of American innovation, American business and American technology, and American national security. So in facing the global war on terror, we’ve got to find ways of reducing our dependency on energy shocks, that we spent $50 billion a year, keeping four shipping lanes open simply because of the tremendous amount of oil that is traveling through the Straits of Malacca, the Strait of [IB] across the country. This is all contingent on an energy equation, and the greater that we reduce our dependence on this one source of energy, the more secure we’re gonna be, and the less that we’re gonna be funding essentially both sides on the war on terror. It’ll also repair relations with countries across the board, not just oil producing countries. It’ll drive the oil producing countries to diversify their economies so that they’re not dependent on one source. It’ll give new birth to democracy in areas that haven’t seen it for long too long but also on countries that don’t produce oil. And, yes, I’m talking in particular, you know, Europe and part of Asia as well, it will really allow us to have a new conversation with countries that we haven’t had for too long.

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