Editor,
I keep reading and hearing in the news media that our congressmen have, all of a sudden, decided to seek oil price relief for our American consumers.
Our own senators are scrambling to alleviate the high prices at the pump, but they both agree that there is no quick fix. We, the public, have known this all along due to the nature and pace of our economic system.
I would like to know where all our senators and representatives have been during the past 18 to 24 months. They should have started working on these problems of gas-price gouging and other high gas price-related problems two years ago, when this problem started rearing its ugly head and the oil companies started reaping their exorbitant profits.
New Mexico's own Sen. Domenici, the Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has the unmitigated gall to say, "We ought to tell the American people the truth."
Personally, I think the senator could no longer recognize the truth even if it bit him on the nose.
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To make matters worse, as part of his solution to this problem, he is suggesting the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling and a repeal of the $2 billion in tax breaks provided to oil companies in last year's energy bill - knowing all along that this would have little impact on prices at the pump.
I don't know about you, but it is obvious to me who has been buttering our congressman's toast every morning during the past 10 years or so.
If our senators and representatives had been doing the job we elected them to do, they would have started working on this problem years ago, and, in all probability, gas prices would not be as high as they are today.
However, I can appreciate the congressional representatives' dilemma, in that these oil companies are their biggest campaign contributors. It is obvious that they have chosen to stop representing the average American citizen and chase after the financial quick fix to their campaign problems.
I'm left wondering if sweeping both houses clean of all representatives and senators that have been there for more than one term would solve our representation problem.
I don't think it can get any worse than it already is.
Nahum Castillo
Daily Lobo reader
