Jo Ann Emerson - Missouri's 8th Congressional District
September 13, 2008
 
Weekly Column
 
EMERSON RADIO ADDRESS: Keep Your Eyes on the Energy Prize

“Every year in September the nation breathes a huge sigh of relief.  Labor Day is over, and gas prices are coming down.  The national average for regular unleaded gasoline has dropped some 60 cents from its highs earlier this year. 

But there is no reason to get overly excited about this decline – because Southern Missouri families and businesses are still filling up for $3.60 per gallon.  And let’s face it, there is nothing “affordable” about a $65 bill every time you stop at a gas station.  In addition, the high cost of diesel fuel is a major consideration for producers about ready to fire up their combines to bring in the harvest... and then to load it onto semi trailers to take it to market.  Faced with the coming winter, Americans on fixed incomes are looking at increasing bills for energy to keep their houses – and them – warm.  We aren’t out of the woods yet.

So I am NOT breathing a sigh of relief this year.  We have to keep the pressure on.

When you think about it, the oil magnates play a very smart game.  They handsomely benefit from the cyclical changes in the oil market.   As prices rise in the spring, they make money hand over fist – but the American people are motivated by these high prices to press forward with the development of alternatives to foreign oil.  When prices come back to earth in the fall, the same OPEC officials watch as consumers begin to feel “relatively” better and talk of alternative energy abates.  Prices will go back up in six months, and they will be back to raking in American dollars, secure in the knowledge that there is not enough critical mass behind the American energy security movement to survive the winter.  

This year, though, ought to be different.  The national debate over energy ought to be a central part of the policy debate of our national elections.  Whoever the next occupant of the White House is, he must understand that the steady diet of foreign oil and the lack of focus on our energy future is a travesty that should be priority one for the fix-it list.
 
So it is up to us, especially in the Heartland, to underscore, again and again, that responsible actions to bring U.S. resources and new technologies to the American family, the American farm and ranch, and the American business. 

If you live in the city, you can turn your back on $4 gasoline and get on the train or the subway.  But in rural America, when your neighbor lives a mile away or your office is in the next town over, your options are limited by the sheer distance between where you are and where you have to go in a day.  Work, school, family, errands.

The reasonable approach requires a balance of energy sources.  We must put biofuels on the market and use solar, wind and nuclear energy to ease the pressures on the power grid.  But at the same time, we need domestic supplies of natural gas, coal and oil for transportation fuels.  No one is going to bring their harvest in on a combine with a windmill strapped to it.  Our manufacturing products will not make it to market on a semi with a sail.

So this year, when the leaders of OPEC sing the lullaby of lower prices they hope will put alternative fuels and domestic U.S. production to sleep, we must stay wide awake.  If we do happen to nod off, then we have to dream about an energy independent American future.”

 

 These are the addresses of the various Emerson offices

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