The Liberty Tree Lantern

I received the following letter from Senator Herbert Kohl (D-WI) in response to my e-mail asking him to allow the exploration for Oil and Gas in all areas possible, because the U.S. has Trillions of Barrels of oil resources (see other posts on this site) to be completely energy independent and lower the price of gasoline and energy to where it was 2 – 4 years ago and the cost to our families and the hardship is too much to bear.  I pleaded with him, in my e-mail, to open up ANWR, the oceans around our country and the thousands of square miles of federal lands to exploration and production of oil.  I also requested that he clear the way of Government red tape and expense for companies to build several refineries so that we could afford to live.  Read his reply, below, for yourself and access if he gives a damn about us.

Basically, as you can see for yourself in the copy of his letter below, he doesn’t care how expensive it gets or how bad we are hurt.  Sure, he Feingold and the rest of both houses of Congress will just vote themselves raises for the extra cost for energy and all products we need to buy for life, so that we not only pay for the increased prices on all products and gasoline that we need to live but than we will also be ‘forced’ by the IRS Agents to pay for their increased costs as well.  Such a deal!  Are we getting mad as hell yet?

We all need to act!  We honestly should be demonstrating in the streets. The Congress does not care if we loose our homes or can not afford to buy food.  Herbert Kohl doesn’t care.  Russ Feingold doesn’t care. Dave Obey doesn’t care.  Steve Kagen doesn’t care.  All four of these Congressmen are Democrats. All four of them sent me similar letters or worse.  How long are we going to take this abuse?  All they have to do is legalize the exploration and drilling for oil and gas and the prices, according to an expert commodities trader on the Rush Limbaugh program today, will come down about $30.00 – $35.00 a barrel.

Here is Senator Kohls e-mail back to me:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me. I value the correspondence I get from people in Wisconsin, and I welcome this opportunity to address your concerns.

Our national wildlife refuges were created in 1903 and later expanded by the Roosevelt administration. Today, our national refuges are threatened because of several laws passed in the 1960s that allowed “secondary activities” on refuges, including oil and gas drilling, timber harvesting, grazing, farming and commercial fishing.

I have been very active in protecting this pristine wilderness from drilling in the past. Most recently on May 13, 2008, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) introduced an amendment to S. 2284, the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2007, which would have allowed for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and off the coasts of the United States. I voted against this proposal and the amendment failed by a vote of

42 to 56.

Additionally, I co-sponsored Senator Lieberman’s (I-CT) bill, S. 2316, which was introduced on November 7, 2007 that would designate a portion of the ANWR as a wilderness, placing a permanent ban on development. S. 2316 has been referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works, of which I am not a member.

Please be assured I continue to support any further efforts to protect the valuable natural resources of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I oppose drilling for oil and gas in the ANWR because of the irreparable damage that would be done to its fragile ecosystem. I do not believe short-term economic considerations should take precedence over the health of the environment. In addition, it is clear that drilling in ANWR will not provide enough domestic oil supply to minimize the control that OPEC has on the petroleum market.

Even in these trying times, insulating ourselves from the world prices of oil will not come from increasing domestic production. We cannot drill ourselves out of our oil dependency, there is simply not enough oil within our borders. However, the U.S. can reduce its vulnerability to oil price shocks by decreasing its demand for oil altogether. The way to ease the impact of high oil prices on consumers is to give consumers tools to reduce their demand for oil. Prolonging our nation’s dependence on oil will continue to place our economic security at risk. Instead, I believe this debate should focus on alternative energy sources, for the economic and environmental health of our nation.

Again, thank you for contacting me. I appreciate knowing your thoughts on this important issue.

Sincerely,

Herb Kohl

U.S. Senator