President Obama should be ashamed of himself for pushing a policy that moves America backward in our quest for energy independence. Instead of calling for more off shore drilling, he should be demanding a moratorium. It is sickly ironic that tens of thousands of gallons of oil are now leaking from a drilling platform into the Gulf of Mexico.
Increased drilling would put America's offshore ecosystems at risk, and would further threaten to decimate the industries that depend on those ecosystems to remain vital. I believe we need to divert the tens of billions in tax payer money that goes to subsidize oil exploration into programs for researching transportation solutions based on renewable energy sources.
If we were to allow American family farmers to grow hemp, and subsidize efforts to build engines that run on hemp oil, we could start to make the necessary transition necessary to become truly energy independent in the 21st century.
Midge Potts, Springfield, co-chair of the Progressive Party of Missouri and the party's candidate for US Senator in 2010
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