Washington – With the U.S. Senate poised to vote on a job-killing amendment proposed by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis said the productivity of American farmers is the key toward unlocking the nation’s potential for growing our way out of high gasoline prices.
“It is time we turned away from the oil fields of the Mid East, and turned to the farm fields of the Mid West for our energy future,” Buis said. “There are no more productive farmers in the world than the American farmers. We can grow our way out of $4 gallon a gasoline, but we need Congress to open the market and allow competition to foreign oil.”
Specifically, Buis singled out the Coburn amendment, scheduled for a Tuesday afternoon vote, as the kind of legislation that would permit foreign oil to remain control over the American economy. Coburn filed his amendment within 24 hours of a decision by a bloc of OPEC nations hostile to the U.S. – Iran, Libya and Venezuela – to keep pressure on oil supplies and keep American gasoline prices high.
“Sen. Coburn’s amendment is precisely the wrong policy at the wrong time. These are dictators kept afloat by petro-dollars, and they have a boot on the neck of the American economy. It’s wrong for our economy, our environment and our national security. We have an alternative in ethanol that creates U.S. jobs, cuts emissions and strengthens our national security – but only if we can give American consumers that choice,” Buis said.