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Rep. Ed Whitfield has some mighty BIG WHEELS to use in parades and at festivals during the campaign season. With the American economy held captive to oil prices, we have to wonder if this was the prudent choice for a campaign vehicle.
The price of gas is spiking to $4 a gallon this weekend because of Hurricane Ike. Diesel blew past that price with little explanation from the industry or the government awhile back. The two political parties agree the price and availability of petroleum is the one of our biggest economic and security issues.
Americans recognize there is a crisis. Whenever a storm hits or OPEC gets in a snit, the vise grips tighten.
Truckers, whose livelihood depends on filling their gas tanks, are struggling. Families are making choices between gas and food. Regions that sorely need tourism, like West Kentucky, need affordable gas prices to attract tourists. Travel, according to AAA, has been down the three summer holidays. We are staying home in droves and economies are suffering for it. Economies are more than numbers. Economies are people's jobs, their families and their future.
Mr. Whitfield and his party’s solution is to put more oil rigs in the Gulf. How that will help in the immediate future with the best estimates being eight years to production and hurricanes like Ike becoming increasing problems hasn’t been answered. Drilling in the Gulf is a response. It is not a solution.
Oil companies, like Exxon, a company that showed a four billion dollar profit last quarter, haven't built a new refinery in over twenty years. They decry lengthy permitting regulations. They don't explain why they didn't start years ago. They also don't explain why they are not drilling on the lands already leased from the federal government.
We remember when oil rigs pumped throughout America. As children, we saw rigs from Pennsylvania to California in cow pastures, bobbing up and down like chickens with a stubborn worm. Those rigs were capped when oil got cheaper from OPEC than to drill here.
Refinery capacity is at 80%. When Ike or Katrina or Gustav come calling, no more petroleum is "pasteurized" until the refineries are reopened. There is no building program for new refineries. Oil companies cite government regulations, red tape and licenses that take years to obtain. It is hard to believe that the Bush White House over the last eight years wouldn't move to expedite licenses for new capacity - if the oil companies wanted it.
Rep. Whitfield is proud of his service on the House Energy Committee. He claims expertise not shared by his opponent. If that is so, then he knows how America slipped into captivity. Big business and hostile countries hold the I.V. of our economy. We would like to hear his explanation of how that came to pass on his watch.
Rep. Whitfield has been in a position to be a leader in energy issues, both here in Kentucky and nationally. For six years, his party controlled the White House, both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court. Why wasn't drilling in the Gulf expanded then? Or in ANWAR? Or expanding the capacity of refineries in the US?
These are questions Mr. Whitfield has never answered. And it’s time he did.
We don't know the thought process that went into Mr. Whitfield's choice of a campaign symbol. We just think it sends the wrong message to First District voters.
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