Everitt Williams For U.S. House of Representatives

The United States needs to reduce its need to import oil so that we are not depending on unstable governments or nations hostile to our values.  Using 2007 figures, we imported about 3.6 billion barrels of crude oil.  Approximately 21% (771.9 million barrels) of these imports came from OPEC.  The four largest OPEC suppliers were 419 million barrels of crude oil from Venezuela,  528 million barrels from Saudi Arabia,  395 million barrels from Nigeria, 181 million barrels from Angola.  On a percentage basis, 69% of our oil goes towards the transportation sector; 24% to manufacturing and industry; 3.7% to residential uses (heating), 1.4% to the production of electricity and the remaining 1.9% to commercial uses.

To reduce our dependence on imported oil (and fossil fuels in general), the most logical course of action is a combination of resource development and conservation.  The United States needs to utilize our natural resources to the fullest extent possible.  This would include offshore drilling, drilling in ANWR, and developing coal-to-oil plants for the production of fuels as a bridge into the future so we can wean ourselves off of fossil fuels.  The development of wind farms (where feasible) could further help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels as will the construction of additional nuclear powered generating stations.  The development of bio-mass fuels also needs to be explored.

On the conservation front, the automotive industry needs to expand the development of hybrid and electric-hybrid automobiles.  As 69% of our petroleum usage is devoted to transportation, this is the most logical place to start conserving.  The recent spike in gas prices have made it abundantly clear where the future lies in the transportation industry.  New technologies such as AFS Trinity’s “Extreme Hybrid Drive Train”  (www.afstrinity.com) which will allow a vehicle to travel 40 miles on an electric charge and a total range of 400 miles in full hybrid mode need to be pursued aggressively.  This technology would provide the short range commuter vehicle necessary for our suburban lifestyle and the longer range vehicle for traveling distances as we like to do.  I fully support a tax break/write-off for the purchase of hybrid vehicles.  Hydrogen fuel cell technology should also be aggressively developed with the hopes of making it feasible on a cost basis for hydrogen powered cars.