Increase domestic oil production

To the editor:

U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has introduced a bill to dramatically increase the production of domestic oil and natural gas to lower prices and make America less dependent on foreign sources of oil.

The bill would allow the production of up to 24 billion barrels of oil through common-sense measures to open up areas offshore and in Alaska for exploration. It would also allow us to develop billions more barrels of fuel through oil shale and coal-to-liquids technology. This will go a long way toward helping us break the cycle of dependence on foreign sources of energy.

Sen. Domenici's Web site points out that had President Clinton not vetoed exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 1995, when oil was $19 a barrel, America would currently be receiving more than 1 million barrels a day from Alaska.

The American Energy Production Act will also lift the one-year moratorium on developing oil shale in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. More than 2 trillion barrels of oil shale currently exist in those states -- three times as much oil as Saudi Arabia has in reserve, according to the senator's Web site.

The problem with all of this is politics. This is a Republican-sponsored bill, and the Democrats who control Congress will not help the American public. They will continue to back ethanol, which costs three times as much to produce when compared with gasoline. The EPA's current ethanol mandates will eventually break the American public.

We need some immediate construction of refineries to process this oil. We have not built a refinery since 1975.

Travis Whitley

LAS VEGAS

English only

To the editor:

Rep. Dean Heller has sponsored a bill that purportedly would "require voter ballots to be in English only" (May 7 Review-Journal). Rep. Heller, of course, has the best interests of his Spanish-speaking constituents in mind: He says he is concerned that bilingual ballots discourage people from assimilating.

Really? Does the congressman truly believe that eliminating Spanish-language ballots will lead to greater English proficiency and, hence, better cultural assimilation?

Hardly. Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Council on Civil Rights, realized the political motivation of the action and said the Heller bill was "mean-spirited" and "introduced against a backdrop of anti-immigrant fervor."

While Rep. Heller's bill is offensive and xenophobic, most troubling is the fact that Rep. Heller has made provision for some ballots to be translated into other languages for certain groups, namely for American Indians and Inuits, absurdly stating that he created exceptions for those groups because "they were here first."

Where, pray tell, is "here"? America? Spanish speakers were surely "here" in America before English speakers, so why no provision for them? Could it be that the anti-Hispanic/anti-Mexican wave has carried Rep. Heller to his dubious "historical" conclusion?

It's ironic that the good congressman represents a state named Nevada. Perhaps he thinks that's an English or Paiute word.

Someone please call in a bilingual translator, but make sure we first ask them from where they came, to be sure "they were here first." Or, at the very least, that they arrived at a politically opportune moment.

Carlos Campo

LAS VEGAS

Sickening policy

To the editor:

Several days passed before I penned this letter because I was recovering from shock after reading the Review-Journal's revealing, but distressing, sickening and eye-opening May 7 editorial, "In the clink -- yet collecting thousands."

The Review-Journal's editors wisely determined that this is the kind of abomination that its readers must be aware of, as much as it is an embarrassment to our country and our justice system. The premise of the editorial is, unfortunately, that apparently crime pays, but only if you are a bureaucrat, politician or administrator with access to public funds. These people assure that their kind are protected by flimsy laws while the rest of us are severely punished for similar misdeeds.

Allowing public-sector criminals to continue receiving their pensions while serving their sentences in prison is preposterous. What is so difficult about creating rules which include retroactive events? Are those who write such rules doing so to protect each other in the event they are revealed as similar criminals? Congress is not above such action.

Will these events require the creation of policies to "watch the store over those watching the store over those watching the store," ad infinitum?

I am dismayed as must be our Founding Fathers, in learning that apparently greed has been given priority over justice.

Leopold A. Potsiadlo

LAS VEGAS