When people are intimidated about having their own opinions, oppression is at hand. - Jimmy Carter

I have one life and one chance to make it count for something . . . I'm free to choose what that something is, and the something I've chosen is my faith. Now, my faith goes beyond theology and religion and requires considerable work and effort. My faith demands — this is not optional — my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.

We must look back into history to understand our energy problem. Twice in the last several hundred years, there has been a transition in the way people use energy. The first was about 200 years ago, when we changed away from wood--which had provided about 90 percent of all fuel--to coal, which was much more efficient. This change became the basis of the Industrial Revolution. The second change took. place in this century, with the growing use of oil and natural gas. They were more convenient and cheaper than coal, and the supply seemed to be almost without limit. They made possible the age of automobile and airplane travel. Nearly everyone who is alive today grew up during this period, and we have never known anything different. Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change--to strict conservation and to the renewed use of coal and to permanent renewable energy sources like solar power.

One of the promises that I made to the farmers of this State and others during my campaign was there would be no more grain embargoes, and you can depend on that. There won't be as long as I'm in the White House. We're trying to establish, for instance, a noncommercial insurance program to make sure that farm product exporters are protected from losses that they can't anticipate. We're trying to expand Public Law 480 to increase the export of our farm products, food and fiber and feed, to nations that are destitute and hungry. We're trying to cut down artificial trade barriers in the multinational trade negotiations now going on in Europe. We're opening agricultural trade offices in places around the world where they haven't existed before. We're trying to make it possible for farmer-owned cooperatives to negotiate directly in the sale of feed grains and food grains. We're making sure that we bring together the different departments of our Federal Government in the common effort to sell agricultural products--the Labor Department, our Special Trade Representative, the Commerce Department, the State Department, as well as the Department of Agriculture. We're trying to establish a comprehensive world food policy to match the tremendous production that we have with the tremendous need among the hungry people of the world. And we're trying to explore new markets, not only in Western Europe and Japan but in Eastern Europe and other countries as well. So, in the export of food we're trying to increase the quality of service that the great farm areas of our Nation provide for the rest of the world. We've got a long way to go. We have to work out the problem with food reserves, and my promise to the farmers of this area was that when we did have high-yielding crops--and this is the greatest crop we have ever had in corn; it's the greatest crop we've ever had in soybeans that we would have reserves that would be not under the control of the Government, but supported and controlled by farmers so there can be no dumping on the market, artificially, to lower prices. And I promised you that we'd do the best I could to get the Government out of interference in the production, storage, and marketing of crops. These kinds of challenges are constantly on my mind. We have a long way to go in soil and water conservation efforts, and we've got a long way to go in providing a comprehensive disaster assistance program.