Wednesday, June 18, 2008

A Letter to Congress

Believe it or not, for the first time in my life I have written a letter to my Congressman. Actually, I sent it by email. I wanted to make it short, so it would be read, but it was important to me that it contain all the things that were important to me about the current energy crisis. I thought I'd write a copy here, along with the location of the online website where you can contact your elected representative. It's really time to let them know who hires them. This may not be the issue that finally moves you to contact them, but when you finally reach the point where you want to be heard, it might be nice to know how to reach the person who has the power to vote for your interests.

First, here's the web site:

https://forms.house.gov/htbin/wrep_findrep

Now, here's what I wrote:

"It is critical that we discontinue our dependence on oil procured from countries that hate us. Please support our energy independence by immediately helping to approve the retrieval of our fossil fuels and then get the government out of the way of the great minds in this country who are quite capable of finding solutions to our long-term energy crisis."

People think that offshore drilling, just one of the proposed short-term solutions, is risky. Remember Hurricane Katrina? With all the oil rigs that were damaged, there was not one drop of oil spilled. Nobody seems to remember that.

It's also important to note that drilling is already taking place off the coast of Florida. Really? Yes. Cuba is leasing oil drilling rights to Brazil. They're not drilling straight down, either. They're drilling diagonally, toward our coastline. Another lease is now being negotiated for drilling off Florida. By us? No, we're still forbidden to drill there. It's a lease with Viet Nam.

It's time to consider our own needs. Loosen the grip that the militant conservationist lobbyists have on our government, and allow our country to function. Conservation should be a good word. It used to be, and will be again, when it's handled by people with vision rather than an agenda.

Okay, the soap box is put away. I rarely get political anywhere unless asked, but I'm mad, and as the movie said, I'm not going to take it [quietly] anymore.

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