The issue is defective capitalism. We no longer have capitalism in the manner that built this country. Today, capitalism is all about protecting established wealth (making sure the internal combustion engine isn't vanquished from automobiles), rather than facilitating the invention of a replacement product by someone and allowing that person to reap the rewards that compensate for the risk endured. And the few rare people who do try to invent new alternatives seemingly cannot do so anymore without tremendous government subsidy or some form of socialization of risk to go along with privatized profits (read: ethanol). We have a broken capitalist system that only benefits established wealth in this country, and politicians on both sides are just doing the bidding of the wealth holders. There is nothing inherently technical that keeps alternatives to internal combustion engine automobiles from taking hold. The inability to develop anything (electric cars, mag-lev trains, etc) as an alternative is simply a barrier of a political nature, because this country obviously has the intelligence to engineer and create.

Anytime any government places taxes on any company, the consumer is the one paying the bill. If you want big oil companies to be taxed, that's okay. But don't complain when the offset is passed down to you in the form of higher gas, oil, electricity, food, etc. As cars cannot run on tears, no use crying about it. Brian, you are exactly right about Nancy and her energy bill. However, she has helped name some fine post offices!

One of the quickest ways to conserve oil would be to enact a national speed limit of 55MPH like we had during the last oil crisis. People hated it but it did save gas. You never hear anything like this because it would require some sacrifice from the American People who have become spoiled and lack the will to discipline themselves. Also all the pols from Bush on down lack the backbone to enact true conservation measures because they are either owned by big oil or fear the public's angry reaction to having someone interfere in their selfish lifestyle, so all we get is the recycled stuff that won't work that Davis is ballyhooing in this energy bill.

Wow, giant tax breaks for oil companies! What a superb idea! They need all the help they can get!

If I understand you correctly Mr. Haynes, the problem of high fuel cost is a partisan issue? And since the Democrats haven't fixed the issue in 2 years, it's a failure? Even though the Bush Administration had 4 years to enact a plan? It would seem to most informed citizens that the energy issue is much, much bigger then Republicans and Democrats. As far as H.R. 3089 is concerned, there's no excuse for more feel good legislation that will do absolutely nothing to rectify the issue. One of the good points of Davis' bill is the clause allowing tax credits for nuclear energy. France produces 80% of their energy needs from nuclear power. Not only that, but they have an excellent nuclear safety record. There's absolutely no reason why the US couldn't do the same if it weren't for Big Oil and Big Coal lobbyists in Washington protecting their future record profits.

I say give it a shot. What are we going to do go green and raise the price of our food even more? Seems the more "green" we get the less green my bank account has.

We got hosed by gas prices on the last "change" people wanting in DC. The only change we got was from our pockets into our gas tanks.

Remember this?
?Democrats have a plan to lower gas prices, taking America in a new direction that works for everyone, not just the few. Our plan would empower the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on price gouging to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices, increase production of alternative fuels, and rescind the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks, and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies.? Nancy Pelosi 2006

Guess that plan worked for us.

Congressman Davis again demonstrates amazing ignorance for someone who represents us in Washington. 1st, he states that OPEC would drop their price per barrel of oil "the very next day - if they know that Americans are serious about using our own resources". While this might be a good sound bite to pitch to the American public, it's just completely and utterly untrue. Hey genius, OPEC doesn't set the price for oil!! They can influence it by producing more or less crude, but they do not set the price point. 2nd, Congressman Davis wants to require the IRS to allow tax-exempt bonds to be used for construction of certain refineries. Yes, you read that right, he wants to give Big Oil more government backed tax breaks. The same Big Oil that could be build, and completely pay for, a new refinery with just 3 months worth of profits. To put that another way, ExxonMobil made more money per second ($1300) then some families make in a month, and he wants to give them more!!!! That brings us to the ANWR debate. Mr. Davis along with the President want ANWR opened for drilling. On April 30th The Bush administration created another great election year sound bite by saying "the United States would be less addicted to foreign oil and fuel prices would be lower if Congress had only opened up Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling" during his 1st term. Fact is, ANWR isn't the answer to our energy crisis and never will be. The EIA, which is the Energy Department's independent analytical arm, estimated that if Congress had cleared Bush's ANWR drilling plan, the oil wouldn't have been available to refiners until 2011. Even then it would only be at a small volume of 40,000 barrels a day. Even at peak production, ANWR would have potentially added 780,000 barrels a day to US crude oil output by 2020. A drop in the bucket compared with the 20.6 million barrels the US consumes daily. Don't just listen to the sound bite's people. Dive in to the issue a little deeper and you'll see this is just another bill that does nothing but produce good talking points during an election year and has a "get tough, get serious" name. No more excuses is right. It's time for a change in Washington.

Davis said:
"we are at the mercy of many unstable energy producers who hate our freedoms and religion"

When are these republicans going to get it? That whole 'they hate us for our freedoms' schtick doesn't work anymore.

Geez, no wonder they're going to get hosed come November.