OH-16: John Boccieri: "A Real Plan for America's Energy Crisis"

Controlling Costs, Creating Jobs, Ending our Dependence on Oil

Since 2001, the price of gas in Ohio has doubled while progress toward energy independence has stalled in Washington. Oil companies have received billions in tax giveaways and quadrupled their profits under George W. Bush, but they haven't even begun to drill for oil on 68 million acres of U.S. land and coastal waters that are approved for drilling today. Americans are left just as dependent on foreign dictators and rogue regimes for our energy as we were seven years ago.

John believes that America's energy should come from Midwest innovation, not Middle East oil. To start relieving pain at the pump today, we should open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, crack down on oil speculators, make oil companies drill on the U.S. lands and coastal waters they already have, and transition to alternative energy sources as soon as possible.

In the same 10-20 years it would take to develop new sources of oil, we could invest in cutting-edge technologies like wind, solar, biomass, biofuels, geothermal, clean coal and nuclear that will lead to home-grown, affordable, renewable energy while creating jobs and turning around the economy right here in the 16th District.


John's short-term and long-term energy solutions include:

Release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The Reserve was created in the 1970s to respond to a gas crisis just like this one. Today, it is 98% full. Releasing just 7% of the Reserve’s current oil supply would begin to lower our fuel costs immediately. When President Bush announced he was releasing oil from the Reserve after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, prices began dropping that same day.

Crack down on Wall Street speculators who are artificially inflating oil prices. Experts say that closing a loophole in federal law that exempts electronic energy futures trading from government regulation could immediately lower the price of oil by 25 to 50%. Today, these futures markets are not regulated like other commodities futures markets, because in 2000 the collapsed energy company Enron pushed through a law exempting them from regulation. (This exemption is often called the “Enron Loophole.”)

Require oil companies to drill on the 68 million U.S. acres they already have. The number of U.S. drilling permits held by oil companies has doubled in the past 5 years, yet oil companies are only drilling on one quarter of the leases they currently hold. That leaves 68 million leased acres undeveloped – including 33.5 million acres off U.S. coasts. In the western Gulf of Mexico alone, oil companies hold more than 4,000 undeveloped leases. They should drill on these areas – where they can start today – rather than stockpiling even more leases that will not yield oil for decades.

Increase energy efficiency and conservation in the United States. Reducing our consumption of fuels is as important as developing alternative energy sources. We need to make serious investments in cutting-edge research like the fuel cell program at Stark State to develop vehicles, appliances, and buildings that run on less and cleaner energy.

Invest in next-generation biofuels that can be grown in the 16th District. Our region includes some of the most agriculturally productive areas in all of Ohio. We should develop diversified, next-generation biofuels that we can grow right here, boosting our whole economy.

Build new local refineries to process biofuels and other next-generation fuel sources. Once we’ve grown biofuels locally, we can also refine them at brand new local facilities employing hundreds of people. John sponsored a bill in the Ohio state legislature (SB 32) to build new alternative fuel refineries on “brownfields,” or abandoned industrial sites.

Create an Apollo program to revolutionize our energy sources. A large-scale transition to 21st-Century American energy sources like wind, solar, clean coal and biomass power would free us from oil dependence forever. At the same time, a report by the Apollo Alliance estimates that nearly 23,000 manufacturing jobs could be created in Ohio through production of alternative energy, and the Political Economy Research Institute finds that more than half a million workers in Ohio could see job growth and wage increases as a result of new green energy investments.

If you liked the video and want to help us get John's energy message out, consider making a contribution of just $22 to our campaign -- one dollar for every year we'll have to wait until Kirk Schuring's "short-term" energy solution has any effect.

As you can obviously see, hanging onto "The Bush/Cheney Energy Plan" is not a logical, nor, a feasible option. Ohio's 16th District requires much more than that. Don't you think it's time we started working for Energy Independence, today? Senator Major John Boccieri's opponent believes in big oil's "stay the course" ideology. We need a serious open discussion, today, if we are to help the next generation of tomorrow.

So much of what we use is derived from petroleum. Do we continue down this "dead-end road" or do we pull together behind forward thinking leaders like John Boccieri(D-Alliance)? You tell me. This "our open forum" guaranteed by great veterans like John. Let's take the fear and misguided emotion out of the equation and start working for our new "green today"!