Letter to the editor: There are three things we must do about gas prices

Once again it is the Fourth of July, and we celebrate declaring our nation free from oppressive control of a nation half a world away. Since then we had our troubles, but we were a still a free nation. Yet this is all changed. Our desire for oil, and its key importance in all parts of our nation, has made us slaves once again. Now we are being controlled by those nations that sell the oil. The sad thing is within our nation we have more oil and energy potential than all of OPEC, yet our leaders tell us we cannot use it. We need to change this. We need to declare our energy independence from foreign oil, and what better time than the Fourth of July.

If we want to declare our energy independence, we need to do three things.

First, we need to dump all (or most) of the Strategic Oil Reserve on the U.S. market. This oil reserve was created to protect us from foreign oil nations from raising prices and harming our nation. Since this is happening we need to use it all. It would also flood the market with oil and drop the prices, thus indirectly punish all who are betting the price will climb even higher.

Second, we need to drill for oil in our nation and in our waters wherever we know it is located. We have the oil, we need to use it now. Why save it and watch this nation struggle?

Third, we need to make maximum use of all alternative fuels. This would mean all cars and truck using flex-fuel. It would mean using all forms of energy production: wind, solar, nuclear and more to have the capability to use electric cars, produce hydrogen for cars. We need to find ways to use less power with out giving up our standard of living. We need to start thinking outside the box in all forms of energy.

We also need to elect national leaders who are willing to fight for these items. At the moment I do not hear of Sens. Barack Obama or John McCain speaking out for using the oil reserve and drilling, just empty talk on energy independence while buying oil from OPEC. Only the Constitution Party’s candidate, Dr. Chuck Baldwin, is publicly declaring this. We need leaders who will fight for our energy independence and not just more of the same.

It is time to let all our elected officials know we want our energy independence.

Thomas Beck

West Fargo, N.D.

Tags: energy, oil, opec, economy