Heidi Alexander: “I congratulate the Senator from Oklahoma for making an obvious and compelling point, which is that the problem is high…”

“I congratulate the Senator from Oklahoma for making an obvious and compelling point, which is that the problem is high gasoline prices. Why is the Democratic solution to raise them more? That is all their tax would do. The Republican plan for dealing with high gasoline prices is to find more American energy and use less. The Democratic plan seems to be to find less and tax more. That is not going to solve the problem. We need to use less. We agree with that. There are a variety of ways to do that: through conservation and electric cars, which I favor, and finding research for crops--for alternative fuels from crops we don't need. More important, we need to find more American energy and natural gas offshore, on Federal lands, and in Alaska. That will not completely solve the problem of high gasoline prices, but it will help. If less oil from Libya is a factor in raising gasoline prices, more oil from the United States would be a factor in lowering gasoline prices. We are, after all, the third largest producer of oil in the world. I thank the Senator from Oklahoma for an excellent point. The Democratic proposal is to find less American energy and to tax more.…”