On The Phone With Sen. Coleman

Many candidates are starting to turn to bloggers to help them get the word out on their campaigns. Sen. Norm Coleman is one of them. Last night I had the good fortune to be on a blogger conference call with Senator Coleman. We covered many issues, but I wanted to specifically focus on one issue that is near and dear to many of our hearts.....high energy costs.

One of the mainstays of the Senator's stump speeches are remarks about how he voted (and will continute to vote) against drilling in ANWR and that he has championed independence on foreign oil. The problem that I have with that last statement is that most people who use it do so to justify pushing us toward bio-fuels - something that has it's own hazards (as AAA and I have c overed repeatedly). So I asked the Senator about whether we he supported domestic drilling in areas other than ANWR. His response was one that heartened me and one that I wish he could get out more.

He responded that he will continue to vote against drilling in ANWR on principle (I can live with that) but he is pushing for expanded deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. He pointed out something that I don't think anyone realized...that no oil was spilled from deep water rigs during or after Hurricane Katrina! Not one drop! He said deep water is safe and reliable and we need to expand it. He said we need to increase our refining capacity....that it will help bring the end cost down as supply increases. He also said that we needed to get off of our fear of nuclear power (gee I wonder where I have heard that before Rep. Beard...).
I asked the Senator if there had been any discussion on the "recent" oil finds in North Dakota.

He said that it was not getting enough discussion and it was needed. He stated that the oil in North Dakota and Canada is more accessible than the oil in ANWR (I did not know that...). He also said that he is pushing coal gassification use and clean coal technology - again something i had just learned about from my House Rep who just happens to be interested in that kind of thing.

He then closed with remarks that I did take to heart. He said we first started exploring alternative fuels during the oil crisis of the 1970's (which I remember well). As soon as we started doing that, OPEC released more oil and we put that research aside. Brazil did not. Now they rely almost exclusively on bio-fuels (LL adds - and when they found that they were sitting on an oil field they became an exporter)! We need to learn from their example. There is a range of alternatives (to foreign oil) that we have at our fingertips. We need to use all of them.

I will have more from the call later as there is another subject that we covered on the call that I want to share with you all.