Washington Journal
CSPAN (CSPAN) National Programming, DMA: 0
08:26AM EDT May 21 2008
Programming Type: Talk News Politics Interview Public affairs

ave to think long term. what happens in 2030 and we need to double our energy needs? that means that we are going to have to double our energy output. who is thinking about that and what are the answers? that is why we are bringing forward these policies. host: myrtle beach, south carolina. caller: think you for your service. -- thank you for your service. i am a retired person and these gasoline prices are very high. it is a shame that the democrats and the global warming crowd has stopped us from producing our own oil. ave cut production in our country up to 40%. the epa and the sierra club is right in their pocket. they are paying them off all this is doing is creating a downturn in the economy this has been one of the greatest economies i have seen in history, and i am retired. guest: the caller is right on several fronts. for our seniors on fixed income, and this is a big impact. when you are filling up once a month and you have gone from -- i mean, filling in once a week, costing a ouple hundred dollars, and it goes up significantly, we know that this is their problem. he is right in that we are hampering our own ability through the rules and regulations -- i had a constituent last week that said history will look back at this and say, that was just plain silly. he is probably right about that. when you have the resources and the technology and you have the nation that is the most innovative nation ever, and the ability and into left to solve this problem, and you put the government as this barricade that will not let you solve this problem, we are going to make it harder, we are not going to let you get to your natural resources or transportation fuel, home heating oil, and electric power generation -- when you have all of these sources in we are not willing to be good stewards of those because government has a road block in that our way. what we as republicans are saying is, take down that wall and let us put innovation to work. we can solve this problem. we are americans and we can solve the american energy problem. host: sure they, n.y. caller: i live in an area where there is a naval base. host: are you still there? caller: i came up with a plan to use those plants without using fossil fuels. the first resistance i had was oil companies and propane gas companies. there has to be a way to let the technology out but at the same time guarantee the price of the stock so that there cannot be printed selling on wall street. host: texas, go ahead. caller: this is crazy. you are sending our jobs to india, taiwan, and we cannot believe that they are using more oil. guest: he is talking about the global price of oil. we did a hearing with all of our oil company executives in the our select committee on energy and environment. the global price of oil and impact - if you look at 1977 when my first child was born and today, the global impact has gone up as well as domestic demand. that is why we have a supply issue. we are importing 60% of the fuel we use every day. canada and mexico are our two largest trading partners. we need to get that amount that we are importing down. it does make us look shortsighted. globally, and demand has come up. the first caller using naval bases. there has been a good bit of discussion in you will hear about individual things, putting a plant on an old military facility. those are all good ideas orthy of discussion and looking at how we get our arms around this, it will take many different coming incremental steps. there is no silver bullet. we do know that americans have the ability to solve this problem and government has been a wall that we need to move out of the way. host: representative marsha blackburn, thank you. coming up we will hear from dr. elias zerhouni who heads the national institutes of health. we will talk about programs that they may sponsor.