Mark Begich

We have to look at the long-term energy requirements of our country and how we figure out how to get off foreign oil. That is the ultimate goal because we are dependent so much on foreign oil that we are really strapped in what we can do as a country.

I want to tell mayors, county chiefs and heads of big companies: don't just chase GDP growth; don't chase the biggest profits at the expense of our children and grandchildren and at the cost of sacrificing our ecological environment.

Well, there's no question that the law passed in 1996 was flawed. It deregulated the wholesale market, meaning the price that the utilities had to pay energy companies for power, but not the retail market.