FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Congressional Candidate Byron DeLear Exposes Akin’s Energy Bait and Switch
Contact: Kevin Caravelli, 314-537-5435, Kevin@DeLearforCongress.org
Matt Pidgeon, 314-322-1077, Matt@pi2advertising.com
St. Louis, MO, June 17, 2008 – Democratic Candidate for Congress Byron DeLear (www.DeLearforCongress.org) called on Rep. Todd Akin to come clean about his support for Bush’s energy policies and the big oil conglomerates.
Last Friday, Rep. Akin staged a publicity stunt over I-70 to promote his new “Energy Extortion Bill”. The Akin proposal would allow oil corporations to begin drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as well as the outer continental shelf. No renewable or alternative energy solutions are mentioned in Rep. Akin’s “Energy Extortion Bill”.
Drilling in ANWR has been debated by both the Senate and House for years. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), Senators Levin-Coleman and other reports, if drilling were authorized in ANWR, it would take a decade for oil from the Arctic Refuge to reach the market place, and would reduce the price of gas by no more than a few pennies per gallon, providing no immediate relief for Americans now suffering due to high gas prices.
“It’s no secret that Big Oil is a major contributor to the GOP political machinery which Bush and Akin are a part of”, said DeLear. “Akin’s legislation will do more to help oil corporations maximize profits than it will ever do to reduce gas prices, now or in the future. We, as Federal legislators, should instead be focusing on excessive market speculation and manipulation that many leading economists have identified as being a primary culprit in the price of oil skyrocketing in the last year. Successfully addressing this component of our energy portfolio could get oil prices down to more reasonable levels and give Missourians the assistance they need now, rather than a scheme to drill more which will do nothing for years to come.”
Dependence on fossil fuels as our primary energy source is an obsolete concept that is ultimately doomed to fail and needs to be replaced with sustainable alternatives.
Creating a sustainable and harmonious relationship between our civilization’s needs and the environment that meets those needs, is a necessity for America’s long-term economic health.
There is a scientific, corporate and now, political consensus emerging that we must replace the polluting fossil-fuel based economy with a new economy; a Green economy.
According to Byron DeLear, this presents great job-creating prospects for Missouri and America.
“We should embrace this shift with the same spirit embodied in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Marshall Plan and the technological explosion born out of NASA’s Apollo Program which sent the first man to the Moon,” said DeLear. “Renewable energy technologies are clearly the long-term solution and should be an integral part of any new energy initiatives from Congress.”
For additional information on DeLear for Congress, please visit http://www.DeLearForCongress.org
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