We as a nation desperately need to focus our efforts on renewable energy sources. Sources that do not rely on the combustion of any substance, whether it be oil, alcohol, or radioactive substances. You talk of change - it is time for a total paradigm shift when it comes to energy policy.

We cannot afford to permit the entrenched powers in the hydrocarbon industries to set energy policy any longer. We need to strip them of the patents they are hiding, and make them freely available for use. We need to stop all subsidies to these companies, and shift those economic resources to renewable, sustainable resources. The record profits at the oil companies show us clearly that they do not need the subsidies.

We need to shift our focus and economy to sustainable resources such as solar, geothermal, wind, and tidal generating capacity. We need to build electrical generating capacity and replace coal-fired power plants in their entirety, and soon.

We need to show the world how to move away from this model, before we all suffocate from the massive pollution coming out of China and India as they burn more and more coal, dwarfing the carbon output of the United States.

We need to abandon the two-century-old model of massively-scaled generation as the only feasible way to provide the energy needs of the country. We should be leading the world in this direction, not playing follow-the-leader.

We need to promote individual investment in these technologies. We need to promote the investment in building these products within the United States. We need to promote large and small projects to strengthen our nation, and disperse this capacity all over the country, then the world.

We need individual home owners to be able to afford to install their own wind and solar systems, to lighten the load on the grid, and on their pocket books as the cost of heating and cooling their homes soars with the rise in oil prices, and leaving them effectively as economic slaves to those big business interests.

Ethanol is not an answer, it is a stopgap enabling the continued degradation of our environment. It usurps land that should be producing food for more pollutants entering the atmosphere.

I hear none of the Presidential candidates discussing this issue. The battle against terrorism requires this move, to shut off their funding. The battle to keep our planet inhabitable requires this move, to close the valve on hydrocarbons and methane entering the atmosphere. The battle to remain the top nation in the world requires this move.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
W Thomas Payne