Many fixes required for energy independence

Tom Keller, Henderson

Saturday, July 5, 2008 | 2:06 a.m.

Ron Levesques’ Thursday letter summarized our energy problems in a nutshell — there is no energy policy because Congress is totally in the pockets of the special interests. The problem can’t be addressed until the stranglehold of the environmentalists, oil futures investors and subsidized alternative energy industries is broken.

Their propaganda tries to convince us that a change such as increased drilling should not occur because such a change alone won’t give us $2-a-gallon gas or make us energy-independent. Nothing can do that — we import 70 percent of our oil and that will continue to increase if we don’t take steps to reduce it now.

A combination of all viable approaches will be required to keep us from being held hostage by Middle East producers and to keep the price of gasoline from going even higher. What must be done is open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Western oil shale deposits, accelerate conservation efforts, eliminate oil futures speculation, and quit diverting our resources to ineffective alternatives such as corn-derived ethanol.