What Minnesota Knows About Clean Energy (And How We Can Explain It To Washington)

Sen. Franken's Speech to the Humphrey Center at the University of Minnesota

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

I'd like to start with a quote from the President. He said:

"Let us set as our national goal, in the spirit of Apollo, with the determination of the Manhattan Project, that by the end of this decade we will have developed the potential to meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy sources."

The reference was to the Apollo program — John F. Kennedy's plan to beat the Soviets in the race to the moon. We had been in a heated competition in space since the Soviets launched Sputnik in 1957.

I was six years old in 1957. The race to space was on, and we were already behind. Not only that-the Soviets had nuclear weapons. So, we were terrified.

As I said, I was six when Sputnik was launched. My brother, Owen, was 11. My parents sat us down in our living room in Albert Lea and told us it was our job to study math and science to defeat the Soviets.

Now, I thought that was a lot of pressure to put on a six-year-old and an 11-year-old.

But we were obedient sons. And Owen and I studied math and science, and enjoyed it. My brother was the first in our family to go to college. He went to MIT and got a degree in physics. I was also very good at math and science, and tested well. And that got me into Harvard.

Now, I became a comedian, and my brother, a photojournalist. But my parents were right. Owen and I studied math and science. And we beat the Soviets.

(Continued here.)