LONGMONT, Colo.—Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., says she’s hearing stories from people struggling with high gas prices and thinks a bill she has introduced can help.
The Republican lawmaker spent some time Wednesday pumping gasoline for people at a Longmont station. She also talked to them about her bill, which would try to cut the country’s reliance on foreign oil by allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore.
The bill would also invest some of the revenue from new oil exploration into a renewable energy trust fund and extend renewable energy tax credits.
“It puts emphasis on domestic production,” Musgrave said of her newly introduced bill.
The bill proposes drilling in ANWR and offshore in an environmentally responsible manner, a plan Musgrave said people at the gas station liked.
Musgrave said the stories she heard of struggles in the face of $4-per-gallon gas were dramatic. A young married mother said she quit her job because driving to work in Fort Collins and day care became too expensive.
Musgrave suggested an energy initiative on the scale of the NASA program that put astronauts on the moon.
Matt Garrington of Environment Colorado said he was glad to hear Musgrave talking about renewable energy, but said she has voted for subsidies for Big Oil and against renewable energy proposals.
He said opening ANWR to drilling would reduce gas prices by mere pennies per barrel.
“It doesn’t make sense to give more handouts to the most profitable industry in the world at the expense of America’s best wildlife habitat,” Garrington said.
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