On Energy...

Every person in this country is affected by higher energy costs, except it seems for Barack Obama and the Democrat Leadership in Congress. How can they say we shouldn't even look for new energy resources in our backyard, when we're sending BILLIONS of dollars in gas money to dictatorial regimes and nations that support terror? NOTE: The average price for a gallon of gas was $2.33 when the Democrats took over leadership of Congress on January 4, 2007.

Democrats always talk about how Republicans are in the pocket of the oil industry, but why are the Democrats content with $4.00 a gallon gas prices, and Nancy Pelosi refuses to even hold an up or down vote on offshore drilling?

It scares me to the core to think that the Democrats have allowed the environmental lobby to hijack our national energy policy. This is both a threat to our economic security and our national security.

It doesn't matter how many billion barrels of oil are under the ground in Alaska or off our shorelines, scientific projections vary on the exact amounts under our feet and off our shores. The oil market is a complex animal, but again, I don't need an economics degree to know that just talking about opening up new sources of American energy will lead to reduced prices at the pump, even if it takes five years to get that oil to market.

For Obama to propose handing out a $7,000 tax credit to drivers who buy advanced-technology vehicles and $4 billion in subsidies to the companies that produce them...claiming that this is a great solution to our dependence foreign oil...I ask, how will he pay for that? Tax the rest of us who are still driving the couple hundred or so million gas powered vehicles? What good will this accomplish? Again, its another Democrat trying to screw with free market principles.

I believe in a combination of both increased oil exploration and alternative energy promotion. Not solely alternative energy promotion. It's ridiculous for us to sit on what could be decades worth of new energy sources right in our own backyard and instead send our money to places like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

While John McCain just recently came around on offshore drilling, he's at least finally come to realize that the rising price of gas and its ripple effects on our economy and national security are worth the minimal risks posed to our environment.

Never given to understatement and once again proving his willingness to go against fellow Republicans, McCain branded the 2005 Bush-administration backed energy plan as legislation with "no policy alternatives, just one pork-barrel project larded onto another" and the "leave no lobbyist behind bill." He was one of six Republicans to vote against the legislation.

Strangely, Obama voted for the 2005 Energy Bill, a bill he now says was written in secret by Vice President Cheney and oil companies. When pressed by a reporter to explain this vote and why he has gone on to criticize McCain on the topic, even though McCain voted against the Bush bill, Obama clouds the issue and accuses the reporter of bias. Again, another case of Obama trying to have it both ways on an issue of critical importance to Americans.

Don't forget McCain's bill to combat greenhouse-gas emissions that garnered 16 co-sponsors, 14 of whom were Democrats, including Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, or the other McCain written global-warming bill that Obama signed onto.

Furthermore, Obama does not support the construction of new nuclear reactors, despite that nuclear energy produces zero carbon emissions, has a long history of safety, and we've got plenty of uranium here in the U.S. Or that Obama is against new clean-coal technologies, yet another source of fuel we have in abundant supply domestically.

Obama's Energy Plan is going to cost the country more money than we're already spending on energy, along with the same emissions reduction and environmentally conscious alternative energy policies that McCain supports. I choose McCain's sensible strategy that both supports exploration for new sources of traditional energy while also promoting sustainable alternatives and conservation.