Energy:

I lay much of the blame for our high cost of energy on Congress. It is not the lack of crude in the ground but the over abundance of crud in Washington. They need to quit fighting amongst themselves and work together for a positive change to bring about solutions to the problems that face this nation. At present they only hinder. I believe very strongly that our nation needs to be sustainable. We cannot continue to depend on foreign oil and natural gas to run our nation.

We as a nation have to work together to build our energy resources to a level that is sustainable.
My suggested solutions to the energy crisis are below:

• I am in favor of promoting research into new energy options other than oil and natural gas.
• I am in favor of the wise and safe use of our oil reserves within our nations borders.
• I believe that environmentally we can do a better job of utilizing our own resources than by getting our oil from countries we have no control over. I am opposed to the “not in my back yard” mentality. Sustainability requires us to be responsible for our own actions. We use; we drill. If we don’t want to drill then we need to find alternative energy sources. Shipping it in from other countries while we stick our heads in the sand is neither a solution nor environmentally friendly.
• I am a firm believer that local oil poses less of an environmental threat than transporting crude across the oceans from other countries.
• I would rather see our nation drill for our reserves than having other countries such as China do so off our coast. Isn’t it better to be in charge of the drilling than to have no say at all? China has a poor reputation regarding polluting the earth.
• I am opposed to taxing energy, industry, and business. It all ends up coming out of the consumer’s pockets anyway.  
• I am opposed to excessive government interference in the normal affairs of industry and business. When we burden them with bureaucracy, we push them to other countries.
• I am a firm believer that competition is the best way to keep prices down. This means that we cannot show favoritism to any particular energy resource or company. I am opposed to monopolies and cartels controlling prices.
• I am in favor of growing other energy options such as solar, wind, geothermal, hydrogen, hydroelectric and any other viable options available now or in the future. 
  World peace would be a lot easier if we were not competing with other nations for Oil.