Tony Zirkle for Congress

Visitor #46522

Energy Independence

We must becomd energy independent. Our economy is heavily tied to the price of oil, for example. Our need for oil should not be hamstringing our foreign policy. Energy has become so important that it is probably now a national security risk to ignore this issue.

Part of my plan for energy independence will be tied to the U.S. Civil Service Academy technology division. This will be a new "Manhattan Project" where we will buy up key technological patents and place them into the public domain for U.S. American firms. For instance, government has often been a valuable partner with private industry. We see this benefit in our own district with the G.M. Hummer plant. However, when a Hummer gets only 10 miles per gallon and has to be constantly refuled like it was in Iraq, it becomes a security threat to our troops. We need to make a concentrated effort to improve fuel efficiency; otherwise, more and more people will be switching to the hybrid market that is currently dominated by the Japanese, and the end result will be a further loss of manufacturing jobs.