Oberweis, Foster clash on oil exploration
Even before Jim Oberweis started talking, the sign behind him advertising gas for $4.19 a gallon told the story.
Residents of the 14th Congressional District are struggling with the costs of transportation. In the upcoming November election, voters in the district will choose between two distinct approaches to lowering gas prices.
Oberweis, the Republican candidate, detailed his plan Friday morning while giving a speech at a Citgo gas station in West Chicago. Incumbent Bill Foster, a Democrat, has a contrasting approach.
Oberweis announced his support for the No More Excuses Energy Act that's lingered in Congress for almost a year.
The act seeks to increase energy sources through a variety of stimuli. Among them are providing tax breaks to help finance domestic oil refineries, wind power facilities and nuclear power plants. Insufficient capacity to dispose of nuclear waste would no longer be a reason to reject the creation of a nuclear power plant.
Oberweis said he supports transporting and storing nuclear waste to the Yucca Mountain Repository about 80 miles from Las Vegas.
"I think we all understand that storing it on-site is not the best answer," Oberweis said. "We need to transport it to a remote, long-term, permanent site."
The act also supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Supporters of the drilling, including Oberweis, said they believe increased exploration would yield billions of barrels of domestic oil that would drive down gas prices and reliance on foreign countries.
"It think it should've been done 10 years ago," Oberweis said of drilling in the refuge. "If it had been done 10 years ago, we would not have the problems we do today. Today we have the technology to do this in an environmentally friendly manner."
Drilling in Alaska is the main reason Foster doesn't support the No More Excuses Energy Act.
Instead, Foster this week signed on as a co-sponsor of the Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act.
The act proposes civil penalties for oil companies that currently lease federal land for drilling but have just let the land sit idle. Oil companies with idle lands would not be able to obtain any more leases until they demonstrate oil production on the land they already have.
The text of the act estimates there are 68 million acres of federal land that oil companies already lease that are not being tapped for oil.
"We can produce domestic oil now on land that is already leased, but these companies are perfectly content to leave these lands undeveloped, playing games with public resources to continue their record-breaking profits," said Foster in a written statement. "Today, I'm sending Big Oil a simple message -- use it or lose it."
Foster said he believes the 68 million acres is capable of adding 4.8 million barrels of oil a day to the current U.S. domestic production rate.
The 14th Congressional District runs from the West suburbs to near the Iowa border and includes all or parts of Kane, DuPage and Kendall counties.