Innovation from Silicon Valley is critical to solving the nation’s biggest problems.

Nancy Pelosi: Silicon Valley has been a strong intellectual resource to us in putting together innovation agenda. In fact, our discussions began at Stanford University.

And when we put the innovation agenda together, it became clear that energy security was a competitiveness issue. It's not only a national security issue for our country, and an economic issue, it's a competitiveness issue.

So right from the start as we put the innovation agenda together, Silicon Valley was there.

And on energy, of course, the green momentum that is springing forth from Silicon Valley is very important because if we're going to succeed with our new green economy, and with our addressing climate crisis and energy security, we have to let the marketplace lead the way.

So when we see Silicon Valley with all the invention and ingenuity and discovery, plus all of the venture capital flowing toward that, we know that we can be successful.

Recorded on: June 24, 2008