Energy independence is a strategic national priority. We cannot continue to spend trillions of dollars on foreign oil, subsidizing regimes that directly or indirectly support our enemies. The Department of Energy has utterly failed in its stated purpose of reducing our dependence on foreign energy sources. Our consumption of foreign oil is the same today as it was the day the Department was established over 30 years (and tens of billions of dollars) ago.

As your Congressman, I will:

• support sensible oil exploration in ANWR and offshore, with strict environmental controls, the technologies for most of which already exist today, to protect our habitat
• support a responsible, non-disruptive transition to natural gas as an alternative auto fuel, starting with federal vehicles, and then incrementally expanding it to the private sector in voluntary partnerships with the 50 states.
• support construction of new nuclear power plants as part of our energy mix
• support research and development of practical, viable alternative energy sources such as solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal, with joint government/private sector research, using tax incentives that will attract entrepreneurs and bring the genius of the American marketplace to bear on this critical issue
• support honest improvements in CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards, which have produced virtually no improvement in automobile fuel consumption in over 30 years
• require the Department of Energy to establish R&D priorities and partnerships with industry, and to develop and implement meaningful, practical and measureable energy consumption and importation reduction milestones as a requirement for continued funding
• oppose Cap-and-Trade legislation because it punishes American businesses – and only American businesses – trying to compete in a global economy while other large industrialized nations have publicly declined to participate in the Cap-and-Trade scheme. It will increase the average energy costs by $1700/year to every household in America. And it will create a system of private sector profiteering by the very advocates who have pushed the very legislation that will create their profits.