All of the economic signals in the marketplace are essentially subsidizing the use of dirty fossil fuels and penalizing clean energy. There's really only one entity in society that can solve that problem, and that is government. And the air is a scarce resource.

Lincoln said that the Patent Office adds the flame of interest to the light of creativity. And that is why we need to improve the effectiveness of our Patent Office.

We have had a loss in manufacturing base and a loss of some of our productive capability that can be filled with the green-collar jobs of tomorrow. But it will only happen if we recognize the scale and scope of both the challenge and the opportunity.

But most importantly, we can all be donors. It does not matter how old you are, your race, where you live; all of us can give the gift of life.

So we are now still dependent on foreign oil, have a problem with global warming, and are losing jobs rapidly to the Japanese in fuel-efficient vehicles as a result of that very shortsighted progress.

Back in the mid-1970s, we adopted some fairly ambitious goals to improve efficiency of our cars. What did we get? We got a tremendous boost in efficiency.

When we design our national R&D programs, we ought to ensure a place for the small, the new, and the cutting-edge.