Fluorescent Fatalism

ABC News’ Kate Snow and Eloise Harper report: Senator Hillary Clinton said the current administration ignores scientific facts and embraces what she called "fatalism" that she finds "profoundly un-American" when it comes to policy choices.

"I am just often struck by how hard this administration has tried to turn wash into an evidence-free zone," Clinton said at an event in Santa Clara, California on Thursday. "Where the facts were subordinated to partisanship and where evidence was disregarded in favor of ideology. The integrity of science has been under assault for six years. And whether it was mercury in our water or carbon dioxide in our atmosphere or decisions over women’s health, ideologues called the shots."

Clinton suggested that the American people have been told reducing their energy use would be difficult to achieve.

She said she likes to tell a story to people who "express the fatalism they have been imbued with by the president and the vice president — that doing anything in the direction of renewable (energy) would somehow disrupt the economy".

"There is a place where the per capita use of electricity has stayed flat and this place has a very robust economy and the people seem happy," she said she tells them. "And it’s called California."

On a personal note about energy consumption, Clinton said her husband, the former president, had become a "fanatic" about replacing traditional light bulbs in their homes with more energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs.

But she offered a complaint to the more than 200 CEOs and senior officials of high-tech companies in the audience.

"I am a huge advocate of improving the light cast by fluorescent bulbs," she started.

"The problem is– Every woman in this audience knows what it’s like to try on a bathing suit in a dressing room with a fluorescent light. And there will not be broad-based market acceptance until we get a better glow from the fluorescent lights! So please get to work on that as soon as possible!"