JENNY PETER
city editor

Eighth Dist. Rep. Brad Ellsworth, D-Evansville, said he is against suspending the federal excise tax on gasoline this summer, saying doing so would take dollars away from much-needed improvements to federal and state highway systems.

Instead, he would like to see Congress continue to explore renewable energies like wind, solar, nuclear and clean-coal technology, such as Duke Energy's coal-gasification plan being built in Edwardsport.

"We have to look at all the tools in our box," he said. "We've all been just sitting on our hands here. We should have been addressing this problem since the 1970s, when we had the oil embargo."

Ellsworth was in Vincennes Tuesday announcing his re-election bid. The first-term Democrat is being challenged by Terre Haute Republican Greg Goode.

Ellsworth easily defeated six-term incumbent Republican John Hostettler in 2006.

Ellsworth said the energy crisis and the ever-rising gas prices are a major concern. He said he recently sponsored a bill that would temporarily suspend shipments to the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Doing so, he said, would provide immediate relief at the pump by increasing domestic supply.

Created in the wake of the 1973-74 oil embargo, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve provides the U.S. with an emergency stockpile of crude oil for use during significant disruptions in commercial oil supplies. It consists of a series of underground storage caverns along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast with a storage capacity of 727 million barrels of oil. Currently, it is over 96 percent full.

Ellsworth's bill would temporarily suspend additional deposits to the reserve for the remainder of 2008 or until the average price of petroleum falls below $50 a barrel for 90 consecutive days.

But Ellsworth called this bill just "one small thing" in the fight against rising energy prices and said no one solution is a "silver bullet" or "cookie-cutter answer."

The future of oil, he says, will require depending less on foreign oil and more on domestic. But instead of immediately pursuing off-shore drilling, which some say could come at a high cost to the environment, he would like to see the 68 million acres the federal government currently has leased to oil companies be drilled first.

"Let's see if that works (to lower gas prices) first," he said following his speech to a small crowd on Patrick Henry Square. "Let's see if that can bring them down."

Ellsworth said, if re-elected, he would continue to work to bring federal dollars into Indiana's 8th District to improve education and infrastructure.

"I want to make investments in this district," he said. "I want to bring good, valid projects back to this district, ones that will promote education, jobs and infrastructure."

Ellsworth also spoke of his record of working to reduce taxes for the middle-class, upholding pay-as-you-go budgeting to reduce the nation's $9 trillion debt and putting a stop to illegal immigration.

Ellsworth serves on the Armed Services, Agriculture and Small Business Committees. He also is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, which works to eliminate the national debt.

Committee by Fran Rottet

Everyone knows that part of the gasoline tax goes to support road work, BUT since Daniels felt obligated to lease the toll road for 75 years, let the money we got from that idiotic step finance road work here in Indiana.

Any help, no matter how little, would be a good thing for us. Sure, a gas-tax suspension wouldn't do much to alleviate the problem, but it would feel like the people on capitol hill were paying attention to the voters who put them there.