Kagen working on plan for rising fuel costs [The Daily News]
For members of the U.S. Congress who haven’t lost touch with the reason they are in Washington, summer is an opportunity to spend time in their home districts listening to the concerns of constituents.
Rep. Steve Kagen (D-8th) has spent the last month traveling across northeastern Wisconsin, and now he is speaking out about the effect of rising gas prices on his district’s residents.
“It’s an economic Katrina. We have to do something right now to alleviate the pressure of these rising gas prices and we also have to plan for the future,” he said in a phone interview on Wednesday.
Kagen advocates a three-pronged approach for combating rising prices that he believes could bring the price of gasoline down by $2 per gallon. The approach involves increasing oil drilling in the United States, investing in alternative energy technologies, and preventing speculators from driving up prices artificially.
“We need to drill for new oil here in America. We have over 100 billion barrels of oil beneath our land right now and most of that land is already owned by oil companies. You have an oil company that owns the lease to the land and we have to say to that company, ‘Use it or lose it,’” Kagen said.
Kagen said Wisconsin is blessed to have access to the UW’s research on alternative fuels, and he believes cellulostic ethanol could be an important investment for the future. But he was quick to say that ethanol cannot be the only solution. Kagen advocates the expanded use of wind, solar, and nuclear power to satisfy the country’s ever-increasing demand.
“We can’t grow our way out of this problem. We have to pursue all the different options. I’m for all forms of energy to get us off Middle Eastern oil. We have to stop shaking hands with our enemies,” he said.
Kagen said that he and his fellow legislators were working hard to develop policies to make it more difficult for speculators to drive up prices.
“Wall Street speculators have locked up oil on their computers. If you’re going to purchase oil, you should be prepared to possess it,” he said.
Read the full article on The Daily News website
