Remember 2009 when gas was less than $2 a gallon?

To the editor:

With the presidential election just weeks away, it seems like many people are still undecided about whom to vote for.

Many believe there is not much difference between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

However, I can give two examples of the vast difference between these two candidates. A vote for Romney would mean a big decrease in gas and electric costs, while a vote for Obama would mean a continued rise in the cost of gas and electricity.

Since Obama became president, the price of a gallon of gas has soared from $1.85 at the beginning of his term, to more than $3 per gallon, and has been close to $4 a gallon during most of his term.

If you vote for Obama, you will never see gas go below $3 a gallon again. He has opposed any new drilling because he has this vision that cars should be powered by electricity, or people should just use mass transportation. He states that drilling for oil and gas has increased during his presidency, but that has only occurred on private lands, which he has nothing to do with.

He has prevented any new drilling on public lands that contain significant amounts of gas and oil.

Obama has said he prefers a gradual increase of fuel costs and that he has no problem seeing it rise to $4 or $5 a gallon. His own secretary of Energy said he could see it rising to $8 to $10 a gallon in order to compete with alternative sources of energy.

Mitt Romney, on the other hand, would encourage drilling on public lands. The United States has vast amounts of oil and gas. He would allow drilling in places like Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, and wherever possible without damaging the environment.

Under President Romney, we could see a gallon of gas go below $2 once again. Also, the cost of groceries would decrease because of lower transportation costs from cheaper fuel.

A second reason to vote for Romney is because of the higher cost of electricity during the past four years. Most of the electricity we use in Ohio and our neighboring states comes from coal. However, Obama hates coal as much as he hates gas and oil. He wants to replace it with solar and wind energy.

Solar and wind energy sound good in theory, but we are not quite ready for that change.

Obama believes if we increase the price of coal-produced electricity, it will be more competitive with solar and wind energy. To reach that goal, he has used the Environmental Protection Agency to place a multitude of regulations on coal companies, so much so that it has caused many coal-producing companies in our region to close during the past four years. Decreasing the supply of coal in Ohio will cause an increase in price.

Romney, in contrast, would not interfere with coal-producing states like Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia that wish to tap into their vast supplies of clean coal. He would eliminate the regulations created by Obama so that we could once again have cheaper electricity by lowering the high cost of coal.

So there you have it – two big reasons to vote for Romney over Obama. On Nov. 6, we could vote for Obama and pay for expensive gas and electricity, or we could vote for Romney and once again pay less than $2 a gallon for gas, while seeing our heating bills decrease by 50 percent or more. The choice is clear. Vote for Mitt Romney.

I also urge everyone to vote for Josh Mandel for United States senator. Our present senator for Ohio, Sherrod Brown, has always supported Obama’s energy policies. Mitt Romney will need the support of Congress to achieve his energy policies, and Josh Mandel would offer that support.

Sincerely,
Barry Hauser
Ripley