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Readers Offer A Variety Of Cures For U.S. Consumers' Oil Pinch

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 31, 2008

Lesson From The Past

We hear a lot of talk about alternative energy; let me tell you a sad story.

We moved here from Long Island, N.Y. In 1973, soon after the first oil crisis, the idea of building a nuclear power plant came about.

At that point, Long Island was paying one of the highest electric rates in the country. The plant was built to the tune of $6 billion.

However, due to protests about how we would evacuate Long Island, Mario Cuomo, the fine governor of our state, refused to sign the emergency evacuation plan and, therefore, no power plant. The fact that just across the sound, Connecticut had the twin of this power plant and if that went down and blew our way, we still had no evacuation plan, didn't seem to matter. The plant was closed without ever opening.

The residents of Long Islandhad a 3 percent surcharge added to our already-high electric bill for the next 30 years. Long Island now pays the fourth-highest electric rates in the country.

So please spare me the whining. Until we get rid of the fear-mongers and the not-in-my-backyard attitude, we are going to have to live with the high cost of energy.

DOLORES WHITFIELD

Sun City Center

Return The Favor

The high cost of gas isn't because of the oil companies here in America; our oil companies only have a 6.89 percent profit margin.

It is because of the foreign oil sellers who we do business with every day.

They charge what they want because they can, but I never saw much of any corn or wheat crops during my 18 months near the Sahara Desert when I was in the military. All we have to do is charge the same price for a bushel of wheat or corn that they charge us for oil.

In a very short time, oil prices will be $24 a barrel again.

JOHN LALLEMAND

Dade City

Let's Use Our Own Oil

Sen. Barack Obama brings up gasoline prices that he says he will reduce as president and then he and his fellow Democrats vote down a bill to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and continental shelf. This leaves the OPEC bloc in control of prices for crude, gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

He is lying again to get elected. All the Democrats will do is increase expenditures and taxes so affording gasoline, food and essentials will become more difficult.

Penalize the oil companies with higher taxes, fines or whatever and the American public will pay a greater price. The OPEC nations have demonstrated time and again that they are not our friends. Only independence from OPEC oil can help and the longer it takes for the idiots in Washington to recognize this fact, the worse the problem will become.

We need to exploit every means of heading toward energy independence, and this begins by opening to drilling the most promising areas of our great country.

Let's find oil and stop using food for fuel and exploiting all our valuable farmland for ethanol.

LOU CHRISTODOULOU

Apollo Beach

Not-So-Simple Solution

I don't understand why people think oil produced domestically will be sold in the U.S. Once it's out of the ground, it belongs to the oil company.

They pay the government a pittance and then sell it on the world market. It is a commodity.

Supply recently went up. Saudi Arabia increased production by 300,000 barrels a day; the U.S. added 70,000 barrels a day by stopping shipment to the reserves. The price should have dropped. We all know it did not. The market is not always about supply and demand.

SCOTT BUCK

Clearwater

Oil No Matter What

The oil that is now being sold for $125 a barrel has been in the ground for millions of years.

The countries that have deposits are taking advantage of a supply-and-demand situation that weighs heavily in their favor, allowing them to run up the price of oil at will.

Since the 1972 oil embargo, we have done virtually nothing to make us independent of foreign oil except the production of ethanol, which has done nothing more than run up the price of food.

If we don't start drilling for oil now in the U.S., in every place we can and as fast and as safely as we can, our economy will collapse, long before global warming is a problem.

Even if we start today, it may be too late.

The 36-year standoff between the environmentalists, Congress, the courts and the oil companies needs to stop now or we're history!

BOB LAWRENCE

Gibsonton

OPEC Has Upper Hand

OPEC: Venezuela, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Algeria, Nigeria, Ecuador, Angola, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq. Most of these countries openly hate us, and the others hate us secretly.

Our aggressive world dealings taught the world that he who has the gold makes the rules. Now OPEC has the gold, and they're making the rules. Any attempt to negotiate is demagoguery at its plainest. We need windfall taxes on the oil companies to subsidize alternative fuels, especially hydrogen.

In the meantime, it's not a bad thing to conserve by being more efficient with transportation options. As OPEC sucks the wealth out of this country, they will become the primary force in the world. This is a battle we have to win.

LAUREN SHINER

Tampa

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