US Presidency
1977

The history of our Nation is one of meeting challenges and overcoming them. This major legislation is a necessary first step on a long and difficult road. This energy plan is a good insurance policy, for the future, in which relatively small premiums that we pay today will protect us in the years ahead. But if we fail to act boldly today, then we will surely face a greater series of crises tomorrow, energy shortages, environmental damage, ever more massive Government bureaucracy and regulations, and illconsidered, last-minute crash programs. I hope that, perhaps a hundred years from now, the change to inexhaustible energy sources will have been made, and our Nation's concern about energy will be over. But we can make that transition smoothly, for our country and for our children and for our grandchildren, only if we take careful steps now to prepare ourselves for the future.