I had an interesting email forwarded to me this week from the desk of the head of a local gaming property who is encouraging their employees to contact their congressmen.

Rather than try to summarize, I think the whole document deserves a vetting.

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Dear Staff,

Please print out the attached document and distribute to all employees. I encourage all interested employees to send this letter, (or their own version) to our elected officials immediately. We all need to come together and communicate our concern about rising energy costs to our representatives in the Senate and Congress.

It is imperative that we act, instead of talk, so that our elected officials will take action to help resolve this critical situation we are facing.

Sincerely,

Gas prices are destroying our economy. It impacts us directly every day. Most products are made with an oil byproduct. Rising fuel costs are increasing transportation expenses and retail outlets, food, clothing, supplies have increased their prices to compensate and they will continue to do so.

It has impacted our hotel as well. Airlines have cut back thousands of seats and increased their prices on the remaining seats coming to Las Vegas. Our customers are choosing not to travel by air or car. This has severely impacted our revenues forcing us to reduce staffing and other expenses.

The only chance we have for change is to convince the politicians that they will not be re-elected if they do not develop and support an immediate energy plan. If they do this, it will send a clear message to all oil producing countries that we are no longer going to be dependant on their oil and the speculators will start dropping prices very quickly.

It is time for all of us to come together and let our elected politicians know that we have had enough. Either they take action immediately and vote accordingly or they will lose our support and votes.

Send a letter, e-mail or call your elected politicians NOW. Have all your friends and relatives do the same. We can make a difference if we pull together on these issues. The politicians will react. If they don’t, campaign and vote against them when they come up for re-election.

Following is a sample letter you may want to consider to send, or use as a basic format to send your own letter to our representatives in Washington.

Dear Congressman / Senator

I am tired of being gouged at the pump, watching prices escalate and jobs disappear. I am tired of hearing political rhetoric and bickering over the problems we face with no solutions or actions being agreed to by either party. I want you to take the steps to initiate immediate proposals and actions that will help get our state and our Nation out of this problem. I will be watching your actions and voting record carefully and if you do not support this type of an effort I will have no choice but to withdraw my support and vote for you in the next election. Please read the following energy plan and let me know how you intend to react.

1. Deplete the national strategic oil reserves by 50% and put this oil into the U.S. market immediately.

2. Start drilling NOW for off shore for oil, natural gas and coal.

3. Develop Nuclear energy plants.

4. Make a deal with the oil companies that they must start reinvesting in renewable energy, solar, wind generation NOW in order to get any drilling rights and sites for oil or natural gas today or in the future.

5. Also the oil companies must start building refineries for oil, natural gas and coal immediately.

6. Make the car manufactures develop products to convert current vehicles that are not gas efficient, and offer them at a reasonable price to the public ASAP. Not everyone can afford to go out and by a new car.

7. Open imports from Brazil and Columbia for sugar based ethanol fuel.

8. Develop domestic sugar based ethanol fuel and get away from using food products for ethanol.

9. Relax EPA standards until oil gets below $100 a barrel.

Sincerely Yours;

Their contact information immediately follows:

Congresswoman – Shelley Berkley

Address, 439 Cannon House Office Building, Washington DC 20515

E-mail, www.house.gov/berkley/con_email.html

Office #, (202) 225-5965 x1505

Congressman – Jon Porter

Address, 218 Cannon House Office Building, Washington DC 20515

E-mail, www.house.gov/porter/contact/

Office #, (202) 225-3252

Senator – Harry Reid

Address, 528 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington DC 20510

E-mail, reid.senate.gov/email_form.cfm

Office #, (202) 224-3542

Senator – John Ensign

Address, 119 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington DC 20510

E-mail, ensign.senate.gov/forms/email_form.cfm

Office #, (202) 224-6244

The memo, while well intended, misses a couple of serious points:

1) This crisis was caused not by the oil companies, but by speculators who, when they could no longer dabble in mortgage and banking speculation, moved back to commodity speculation. Their manipulations, and not the oil companies, drove the prices out of sight.

2) If the lessons of the 1973 and 1979 energy crises should have taught us anything, it was that our government cannot regulate an energy market any more than it can regulate a river or ocean. (Witness Katrina and New Orleans or, for that matter, the Mississippi River!) Spiking energy prices were capped, to be replaced with long gas lines.

3) There were a number of great alternative energy programs proposed in the 70’s but they vanished with the oil glut of the 80’s. If we make even a dent in the shortage, watch that the price of oil will "miraculously" begin to plummet. OPEC and Hugo Chavez want us to continue our oil addiction. We need to hold firm and come up with honest answers and then follow through, no matter what the pain.

4) There must be no compromise. Nuclear needs to be considered. Seriously. If the wimps in France can put up with it, then we can.

5) Finally, no solution will work overnight. It may take a decade for there to be any significant progress toward relief. If our politricksters had been brave in the 70’s, we wouldn’t be here today. Get with the program, deal with it, and don’t blink.

Together, we can achieve energy independence. But it’s up to you to demand your legislators do the right thing!

Wyatt Cox