To the Editor:
Last Thursday, Former Vice President Al Gore announced his challenge to make America's electricity grid 100% renewable in ten years. His vision to reduce our dependence on oil makes both economic and environmental sense. Increasing production of clean, renewable energy will create jobs, save Americans money, and protect our natural resources.
Vice President Gore also criticized the deeply flawed logic of increasing offshore drilling to reduce gasoline prices. Drilling offshore will not affect gas prices, , yet President Bush, Senator McCain, and their allies in Congress continue to promote these failed policies of the past.
While the costs of limited resources rise as they are consumed, demand for renewable energy creates a competitive industry that drives prices down. The answers to our energy problems are also the solutions to our failing economy. If Americans are prepared to demand change from their leaders, they will see results.
Signed,
To the Editor:
In the last year, oil companies have taken about $610 in extra profits from every American driver, hurting working families and draining our economy. Now the oil companies are using their record profits to launch multi-million dollar ad campaigns to push for more drilling, while neglecting to mention that opening the Outer Continental Shelf to drilling won’t lower gas prices.
The Energy Information Administration reported that drilling has increased 75% since Bush took office, but gas prices have shot up over 250% during that same time. This pattern will not change. The bottom line is that drilling only benefits Big Oil, Bush, and their allies in Congress, not the American people.
The only way to provide relief to consumers from high gas prices is to provide them with choices other than Exxon or Shell. We need to embrace American ingenuity and innovative technologies such as plug-in electric hybrids that will create jobs, drive the economy, and break our addiction to oil once and for all.
Signed,
To the Editor:
As gasoline's chokehold on the American economy tightens, think for just a moment - what if it wasn't this way? Imagine a world with real energy choices; the option to consume less gasoline or no gasoline at all. Fortunately, both short-term and long-term solutions exist today that can create these energy choices.
In the short-term, we must close the loopholes allowing Wall Street speculators to participate in manic buying and selling, which has completely disassociated the cost of oil from supply and demand. In addition, Congress should give a direct rebate to the American people to help families cope with rising gas prices, funded through a tax on the windfall profits of Big Oil.
In the long-term, we must create cars that go much further on a gallon of gas. Increasing fuel efficiency standards is a long-term solution which will have a permanent, positive impact on the amount of gasoline Americans must consume. America deserves a future with real energy choices, and we can get started today.
Signed
To the Editor:
You know it's not just rhetoric when the oil man and the environmentalists agree.
Over the past few weeks, T. Boone Pickens, who has made billions in the oil industry, is echoing environmental organizations and is calling for a national commitment to domestic renewable energy. More specifically, he believes that wind energy must account for ten percent of our electricity within ten years.
Pickens knows that inertia will leave us addicted to oil, dependent on hostile foreign regimes, and put a solution to global warming out of reach, but that making the right choices now puts us on the path to energy independence. Congress can help by investing in a clean energy economy that will create jobs and stimulate the economy.
After decades of addiction, moving beyond oil won't be easy, but it can be done. It will take hard work and a national commitment. It will take a willingness to embrace new solutions like significantly increasing fuel efficiency and renewable energy instead of the tired answers of the last century. If an oil man can get there, can the whole country be far behind?
Signed
