Current energy costs are having a serious negative impact on the American economy. The cost of our imported energy habit adds up to between 500 and $700 billion a year. Do the math. Every man, woman and child in the country is paying about $2,000 for imported oil.

There is, however, a much darker side to our current crisis. Currently, America imports 70 percent of its oil. The majority of our imported oil comes from the Middle East, which not only is unstable, but whose rulers are not supportive of the American way of life.

The billions we send to the Middle East, in part, end up funding the very terrorism that we are fighting around the world. With their billions of oil revenue the Arabs are also investing in America, buying choice property and businesses. Are you aware that among their holdings the Saudis own 25 percent of the Wall Street Journal?

Should there be crisis in the Middle East the oil spigot could be turned off. The result could not only push gas prices to $8 or more per gallon, but result in rationing. The question is not if, but when, and will we be prepared?

Total energy independence must be the goal of every citizen of this country. If we were to start today this could take us 10 to 20 years. If we do not take action, this will be a very different and poorer country in 10 to 20 years. We cannot continue to ship $600 billion abroad without dire consequences.

How did we get in to this mess? The truth is both political parties are at fault. The conservatives have been in bed with big oil, who is making so much money they have no incentive to drill for more oil, and the liberal party which has been taken over by the environmental far left, and is blocking most alternative energy sources. The American citizen has been left holding the bag.

I will agree that we cannot drill our way to energy independence, and it may take five or more years for the new oil to reach the gas pump. However, if we had started drilling five years ago, we could be burning that oil today. If we do not take action now where will we be five years from now?

An aggressive drilling program coupled with a serious effort to fast track all alternative energy sources could give us energy independence. I am not talking about a half-hearted effort. But an all-out effort, like the Manhattan Project that developed the atom bomb in the 1940s, and the effort to put a man on the moon in the 1960s.

I believe that energy independence is, by far, the most important issue of this election. This country has both the resources and skills to accomplish energy independence in 10 to 20 years. But unless both our political parties get their act together it will not happen.

Drill for oil now, expand the ethanol programs including high cellulose bio mass, build more wind farms, generate energy from geothermal, remove the road blocks that have prevented nuclear plants from being built, invest in the coal to gas programs, develop the shale oil fields, develop autos that can run on multiple liquid, and blends of fuels, encourage solar generation, both large scale and for individual homes.

Will energy independence lower gas prices? Maybe not! But, what it will guarantee is that we are not held hostage by the oil barons of the Middle East and South America. Alternative fuels can be profitably produced at a lower cost than we now pay for energy.

What energy independence initiative will do, is provide millions of new jobs, and companies which in turn will create billions in new tax revenue.

Energy independence does not have to destroy the environment, as the nay-sayers predict. While developing alternative sources of energy every effort must be made to protect the environment, and limit green house gasses .

Yes, it will take government subsidies and tax incentives. But consider the options, continue to enrich the Saudis, and watch our way of life fade away, or invest that 700 billion a year in America and its citizens.

This is also a political issue. “you” have a decision to make. Nearly all liberals, including Obama at die top and Walsh at the local level are apposed to drilling, they also appose utilization of coal for liquid energy, and utilization of our vast shale oil fields, and nuclear energy. There is a belief among the environmental elite that if fuel prices get high enough the public (you and me) will cut our use of energy dramatically. They are right, but then only the wealthy will be able to travel.

The liberals proposals for wind fall profit taxes on big oil will not lower fuel costs nor encourage oil companies to drill for more oil. Tapping our strategic oil reserve to lower gas prices is one of their stupider ideas. The strategic oil reserve must be held for when some terrorist group blows up a major supply terminal or the foreign oil spigot gets turned off.

Liberals in their blind rush to conservation are destroying the trucking industry, our airlines, automobile industry and any industry that depends on transportation to move its products or the average Joe who needs to get to work. Cost of transportation is more to blame for raising food costs that ethanol.

I have considered myself a environmentalist for over forty years and am long term member of the Audubon Society and Serria Club. However, these groups have gone too far when they put wildlife ahead of the welfare citizens of this country.

The basic science of all alternative fuels is established. Germany used synthetic fuel made from coal in World War II. Brazil currently is energy independent, with ethanol as its base fuel. Most of France’s electric energy is generated by nuclear power, Iceland gets most of its electrical and heating energy from geothermal. The technologies are there, as a country we need to cut the bureaucratic red tape, and silence the big oil and middle east lobbies who are doing every thing possible to protect their source of income.

How would we pay for such a grand undertaking? One step would be to place a $5.00 – $10.00 surcharge on every barrel of oil imported from the Middle East and Venezuela. All proceeds going to develop alternate energy sources. Once alternative sources energy come on line they will viable as long as they get the same tax breaks that the oil industry has gotten for years.

Turn our farmers, scientists and entrepreneurs loose, without unreasonable regulations or red tape and energy independence will be achieved.

While we now live in an age where you can trust little of what you read to be factual, the book “Energy Victory” by Robert Zubrin is a must read.

Rural Albert Lea resident Don Sorensen is a moderate environmentalist and an avid reader of technology reports.