We allow it to be dumped into this community asset, which is our one and only atmosphere. So that has to change, and there's really only one entity that can do that. So we have proposed a cap-and-trade system to stop that unlimited pollution, to use the forces of the market to efficiently allocate scarce permits to allow CO2 into the atmosphere. That's just one of 500 things we need to do, but it's probably the granddaddy of them all.

The 1st Congressional District contains almost half of the biotech and biomedical companies in Washington, and my job often allows me to meet the people responsible for this exciting research.

Tolerance is the value that was selected to put on here, and tolerance is as American as apple pie.

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.

We need to do for clean energy what Kennedy did for space in the original Apollo Project: Set a bold vision that will light the fires of innovation and make a game-changing shift in how we use and produce energy. And nothing less is adequate.

I'm sure that in the fullness of time we'll learn that one or more of these seemingly promising technologies were dead ends. And that's the nature of innovation, and that's why we should spread our bets; we should not put our eggs in any one basket. Some of these will be grand successes, some of them will be average, and some of them will be abject failures.

Renewable energy also creates more jobs than other sources of energy - most of these will be created in the struggling manufacturing sector, which will pioneer the new energy future by investment that allows manufacturers to retool and adopt new technologies and methods.