Students of US history will remember why the Sons of Liberty set about tossing  2 million (current value) dollars worth of British tea in the drink back in December of 1773. You got it, oppressive regulation with no means of redress. It seems to me that we've come full circle, here we are again in 2008 with an autocratic agency dictating what we'll do and how we'll do it, damaging the public with foolish regulation of public and private resources and the people have no functional means of redress. Who is the Environmental Protection Agency anyway? Who votes them into or out of office? The truth is no one does, they are all appointed to these positions and sit above any public accountability.  Prove it to yourself, ask any elected politician from the local level to the federal, why we don't have access to the natural resources of this great land and the standard answer you will get is "the EPA won't allow it".

From the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to the Gulf of Mexico, to both coastlines & almost everywhere in between, we are sitting on top of the world's largest crude oil reserves. Last week (April 10th 2008) the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed the new discovery of a massive oil deposit in North Dakota, how big? The biggest ever discovered in the U.S.! Combine just that one with any of the others we are sitting on and we would not need to buy foreign oil ever again. One can easily deduce that if the revenues from oil production and refinement were to stay inside the U.S. rather than be distributed abroad (to dubious trading partners) (a) this recession would be over in a snap and (b) we would set the worldwide price of oil. Rather than going hat-in-hand to the middle east and begging for price concessions, our president would be able to say, "nah, I won't pay you $110, it's $50 or I pump my own".

This is America! Cheesy excuses from lap dog politicians won't do any longer! It's high time Americans made it clear to these government wonks that we will not sit back and allow them to hobble this nation by continuing to lock up our natural resources. Their ridiculous policies are flushing literally trillions of US dollars out of this country and into others where they will gladly allow drilling for oil or building refineries. At $110 dollars a barrel? You bet gringo!

When you think about the cost of fueling your tow rig, and whether or not you will be able to afford to make your next race, remember, these gas prices and the weak American dollar are brought to you by the EPA. A federal agency which holds unchecked power because a bunch of elitist politicians would rather bow to crackpot political correctness than the reasoned thinking of the people who put them in office. Maybe it's time to send a message like our fathers did so many years ago. Something like, "Don't Tread on Me".

Ryan Hunter  

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