Editing 78-11-B6 (section)

=== Transcript ===
Across the country, inventors are coming up with new ways to harness renewable energy sources and some of the most influential of them want Uncle Sam to stay out.
I'll be right back.

The Arab oil embargo of 1973 produced a lot of effects on America and one of the beneficial ones was a great upsurge in creative research and development of alternative energy sources. Chief among these have been, of course, solar and wind energy. Naturally there have been voices raised in Congress for Uncle Sam to spend more and more money on developing these new energy sources. But now some of the most respected voices in the alternative energy field are discrediting the arguments for ever increasing government subsidies.

Tom Bender is one such person. He was a leader in the creation of the National Center for Appropriate Technology, funded by the Federal Community Services Agency, but he has become a sharp critic of that organization and the federal funding approach in general. Bender says that "government funding for alternative technology is probably not necessary, mainly because so much progress is being made without it. There's a growing awareness," he says, "that our problems must largely be resolved by local responsibility in action and that government money is not free dollars but only our own hard work and taxes diluted five to one with bureaucratic red tape and control. We always get the best results with our own money," he adds, "because we're more careful with it. Local money is second best and federal money the most dangerous."

Another leading figure in solar energy development, Steve Baer, is even more critical. Baer says that, "President Carter is silly to hand out so much rhetoric about a national energy policy." Baer says, "There shouldn't be any national energy policy because no one has the wisdom to make one. We do not need a Department of Energy." he declares, "We do not need laws governing everything from the car you drive to the windows in your house. Foolish people will waste their money on inefficient cars and badly built houses. Isn't that their business?"

"Leave people alone with enough wealth after they pay their taxes and they will invent, develop, trade with each other and do a good job of solving their own problems." says Baer. "It's a great shame that the so-called energy crisis is being used by politicians to increase taxes and laws thereby taking away liberties Americans have previously enjoyed. Behind every gentleman working on government research stand the police. I don't think the founders of our country had this relationship in mind." Unquote from solar energy leader Steve Baer.

These solar pioneers are right on target. After we've heard so much romantic rhetoric about alternative energy sources this kind of realism is refreshing, isn't it?

This is Ronald Reagan.

Thanks for listening.

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