The administration finally came up with a solution to the high gas prices. Open more areas to offshore drilling. Sounds simple doesn’t it? The question being raised by the Democratic Congress is “ Why open more of our shoreline to offshore drilling, when the oil industry has 68 million acres of offshore waters under lease that they are not doing anything with?”

Is something wrong with those acres? Are they not being drilled because they do not contain enough oil? There has to be some reason why they want more acreage opened up to them when they have so much they have not used. It is not that easy. You don’t up a rig in one day and wham out comes the oil. This will not fix the immediate problem and bring down the cost. Opening up the oil reserves will give some fast relief. But oil is not a long term solution either. There is no way we will get fast relief because no one has taken the lead in setting up a sensible and renewable energy policy..

We have been through this before. Oil shortages, high prices, then things seen to straighten out. Of course prices do not come down. Then the whole thing happens all over again. Enough already. Do the math. The United States uses 25% of the world’s production of oil and we only have 3% available for us to drill. We will never become energy independent if we continue to rely on oil as our main energy source.

It is time to turn our attention to alternate energy sources, unless we want to continue to be at the mercy of the countries that hold the most oil. There are cars already that run on alternate fuels – hydrogen powered cars for example run on fuel that is renewable. There is a limitless supply and not only will it be cheaper in the long run, but it is clean energy. The only thing coming out of those tail pipes is water vapor. There is solar powered lighting not only for outdoors but indoors as well. Wind power, water power – they are just sitting there waiting to be used.

This has already become a campaign issue with John McCain backing the President almost as soon as the announcement was made. And Florida Governor, Charlie Crist, who is considered to be a front runner for the Republican Vice Presidential spot, has done a complete turn around from his long standing opposition to off shore drilling and now backs the Administration and his potential running mate.

The House Appropriations Committee is supposed to be holding hearings on continuing the ban on off shore drilling and the Republicans are also looking to make this an issue of states right and let each state decide for itself. But why should we keep up with an energy source that is not renewable and can case an ecological disaster when we already know about clean and efficient energy sources?