Energy Freedom Day

Some people are calling October 1st, Energy Freedom Day, because that is the day the Congressional bans on offshore drilling and the development of oil shale will end. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi had every intention of extending the ban. However, with $4 dollar gasoline, about $700 billion being sent overseas each year to foreign exporters of oil, many of whom are hostile to us and large amounts of it going into the hands of terrorists, public opinion changed rapidly. Some opinion polls showed that 67% of Americans are in favor of offshore drilling. The American people expressed outrage that the bans were unnecessarily limiting domestic supply and raising the price of gasoline and heating oil.

At the start of summer driving season, Nancy Pelosi shut down the House of Representatives for a five week vacation, rather than taking up the energy issue. When Republican representatives continued to discuss the issue, Nancy Pelosi turned off the lights. With this type of conduct in the background, grassroots citizen activist groups, such as Americans for Prosperity and many others, went out to the people to raise awareness and put pressure on members of Congress. Inside Congress the effort toward energy freedom was spearheaded by Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Congressman Jeb Hensarling of Texas. To find out more about issues involved and the activities these grassroots citizen activist groups do outside of Congress and their battles with Congress to release more of our own domestic energy go to www.americansforprosperity.org and their related blog site. Congress did not add the two ban extensions to a major spending bill recently, but we must be ever vigilant, because they may try to sneak the extensions into another Bill.

Our plentiful domestic energy sources include water, wind, solar, bio-fuels, sugar ethanol, oil, gas, oil shale, gas shale, coal, coal to liquids and gas to liquids. Are you in favor of developing these domestic sources to make our economy strong, provide jobs, improve our balance of payments, and strengthen the dollar, among many other benefits?