Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ve always heard tell that when you’re banging your head against a brick wall the one good thing about it is that it feels so good when you stop.
I appreciate the Member’s concern. We have, as the Member knows, very few new dollars in the budget for alternative energy. We had $60 million. Our fiscal circumstances are such that after the end of this coming month of March that money will be concluded, sunsetted, and we’re now in a position of trying to find some money to continue the many initiatives we have underway in terms of conservation of energy efficiencies, alternate energy, biomass, wind, sun, solar, all those type of things, construction standards, incentives for people to be more energy efficient.
So I appreciate the Member’s concern, but in the meantime these are costs that we just can’t flip a switch and avoid. It’s infrastructure change that is going to take more time than we have before us in the next few weeks. Thank you.