i know this sounds crazy, but our big oil companies are not so big compared to others, we must take the restrictions off of domestic drilling make it cheaper to drill our own than to import foreign oil.if it is supply and demand we have enough here to meet our supply many times over and still export. i still can not believe we use to be the number one oil exporter in the world. the only thing democrats can do is tax they know nothing else

Brazil is an example of a nation that is energy independent. I have friends in Brazil and have had the pleasure of discussing such issues. The only problem with useing Brazil as a good example of a fuel indepentent country is the differnce in the economy and income status of most families there. In Brazil you are very wealthy or very poor. Unlike the US there is no in between. Because of this fact you have far fewer households that own automobles than you have in the US. The fuel consumption per family is mind boggling lower than here in the US. In most cases only the wealthy own vehicles and really can care less about the going rate on a gallon of gas. You may have a hugh sugar cane farm with over 100 workers and only the owner of the farm actually owns an automobile. Big difference compared to the US fuel consumption.

Brazil would like to export some of their bio-fuel to the U.S., but there are tariffs in place that favor the oil companies. All of those things need to be looked at so that the energy market can once again become competitive.

I also thing that a 4-day work week might help if done on a large scale and even telecommuting should be examined.

Just spend the money on updating our refineries (spell) that would be a nice start

keepin it real

The only problem with ethanol is one of supply, and as we speak, we don’t have a good one to depend on. Due to the fact our government abandoned the idea many years ago, in favor of foreign oil. Had we have properly thought the situation through, we would be using ethanol all over the US today, and telling big oil companies to bite the big one. But, had they have done that, their would not be no big oil tycoons, and much less taxes and wars.

I saw that report about Brazil and that amazed me!  They have been energy independent for several years now and we should learn from them.  Sugar cane is their preferred crop to convert into bio-fuel.  Maybe we need to look at that or sugar beats instead of putting all our eggs into the corn basket.

i hate to agree with republicans but i agree. this is the dumbest bill congress has ever tried to pass. instead of wasting time and money on useless bills like this, why not lower the tariff on imported cars from brazil. brazil has some type of car(cant remember if it runs off ethanol, or something else), but they have millions of them they are ready to sell to US. why are they not selling to us? the tariffs the government has set are so high it’s not profitable to do so. the government did this to protect american oil companies. the government is not going to do anything about this oil problem. however, although the democrats idea was DUMB, at least they are trying, something the republicans didnt do.

I agree. The first thing the oil companies would do is make up the loss by jacking up the cost of gas unless there was some legislation in place that would prevent them from doing so.

It looks like we are at a crossroads in this country in regard to our basic belief in capitalism and the Democratic Party’s push toward socialism…...

It would not have taken a rocket scientist to figure that out. That kind of tax increase is just the kind of wreakless leadership Obama and his democratic followers will bring to the table if he is elected.