When we look at the analogy of how we solved the acid rain problem, as a government we created public policy that stated to industry that there were guidelines they must meet. We gave industry the appropriate amount of time to work on the problem to solve it, and we gave them the patience of our understanding that, along that technological development way, failure will happen.
When goals are worthwhile, we use the lessons learned of failure and we continue to go forward and march forward, and eventually those failures will lead to success. This is exactly what happened when we had a very serious existential threat to our well-being within North America, which was acid rain. What we created were tax policies. I believe government has no business making technological decisions. I believe that those with the best bona fide interest are industry and the technical representations of those industries, together with universities and trade associations.
What we would be able to do is.... If we were to create public policy that unlocked that, unleashed that and encouraged industry, I'm comfortable saying that great things would happen. If I use the analogy of the west, some people may have the impression that oilmen don't care very much about the environment, that we care about drilling wells and perhaps producing oil and gas. Nothing could be further from the truth. For the last 30 or 40 years, some of the best oilmen have been working on both sides, improving the ways to improve our energy intensity per barrel produced.
Back to your direct question, the best thing we should do from a public policy perspective is to create the playing field, not make technological decisions. We don't need to make these investments. The investments that industry would make would be investments that would make them money together with solving those problems.
I guess what I would suggest, if you were to ask me specifically, is an expansion of the scientific research and experimental development potential. If we had generous status that industry could count on.... Let them make the decision, but let them be able to monetize their losses on the way to success. Great things would be accomplished in our society. I have no doubt about that.