Gilmore on Oil Prices: Drill ‘Now’

By Mac McLean
Reporter / Bristol Herald Courier
Published: July 9, 2008

BY MAC McLEAN
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
BRISTOL, Va. – Gas was going for $3.94 a gallon at the Euclid Avenue Chevron on Tuesday when former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore filled the tank of David Sizemore’s minivan.

The two talked about the effect gas prices have had on the economy and how Gilmore, the Republican candidate in Virginia’s U.S. Senate race, would work to lower them if he was elected to office this November.

“Hopefully, he can do what he desires to do,” Sizemore, pastor of the local Norfolk Avenue Baptist Church, said after their conversation. “Probably the only people who aren’t affected by [higher gas prices] are those who don’t buy gas.”

Gilmore said the increasing costs of gas and food were two of the most common concerns he’s heard from voters on the campaign trail. He told Sizemore the best way to bring them down was to start drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off the Florida coastline.

“Oil prices will drop immediately if they know we’re going to bring in more oil,” Gilmore said. “We’ve got to drill in ANWR, and we’ve got to do it now.”

Gilmore said a federal gas tax holiday – an idea suggested by Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. – also would reduce prices, although he conceded the proposal would not work as a long-term solution like drilling for oil in Florida and Alaska.

Gilmore said his opponent, Democrat and also former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, was unwilling to drill in either place, which is one of the biggest differences between the two candidates and their campaigns.

“[Warner’s] saying that he cannot do these things, but I will,” said Gilmore, who also suggested increasing the country’s refining capacity and putting more of an emphasis on coal and nuclear energy for power as ways to reduce gas prices.

“[Warner], like John McCain, does not favor drilling in ANWR,” Warner campaign spokesman Kevin Hall said in a telephone interview that followed Gilmore’s visit.

Hall said Warner has, however, expressed his support for lifting a ban placed on offshore exploration for oil and natural gas. But he said neither proposal would make a great deal of difference in the long term because the U.S. has only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves but uses 25 percent of the oil.

Hall said a more effective solution for high gas prices would be to close regulatory loopholes that allow speculators to drive up the price of oil coming from foreign markets.

The Warner campaign also favors increasing diplomatic pressure on oil-producing countries and providing tax credits to people who purchase high-mileage vehicles, he said.

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