Published: July 17, 2008 12:04 pm         

Fossil fuels are not the problem - Congress is

An article from the "Political Diary" published in the Wall Street Journal tells of Sen. Harry Reid's attitude about coal mining and drilling for oil in our country.

Democrats are eager to try to blame everything from oil companies, to speculators to President Bush for not releasing oil from our Strategic Reserve. They are grasping at placing blame somewhere other than where it belongs - the Congress of the United States. Mr. Reid who is evidently fed up with questions about drilling, has said: "Coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it's global warming. It's ruining our country, it's ruining the world. We've got to stop using fossil fuel. (Shut down our coal mines?)

To most liberal Democrats, cheap fossil fuels are the root cause of excessive materialism, and they have been demanding that government raise the price of energy to discourage Americans from driving big cars and living in well-heated comfortable homes. Of course they most likely feel personally exempt from this goal.

Liberal politicians never had the political courage to impose European-style gasoline taxes directly, but Mr. Reid's policy at least explains why Democrats have found it so easy to sit by rather than take serious steps to increase domestic supply and bring down the price of gasoline. The Congressional approval rating is the lowest that Gallup has ever recorded. Is it time to replace the 435 people in Congress and the 100 senators - all doing the work of lobbyists?

Bob Buck
Cumberland