THAT’S DEBATABLE:

With gas prices soaring, eight freshman senators are pushing for energy legislation that would implement a windfall-profits tax and roll back oil industry tax breaks. Do you think the government should step in and find some way to drive down the price of gas?

One thing’s for sure, a windfall-profits tax is more likely to raise the price of gas rather than lower it as these publicly held companies react to replace the income lost to the tax. This is a proposal from the usual tax-and-spend crowd here in Washington to use high gas prices as an excuse to raise taxes on anybody in order to spend more of your money on whatever they want to spend it on. If they really want to reduce gas prices in the short term, the thing to do would be to lower taxes, specifically the gas tax, which would immediately reduce the price paid.

But they will never propose this because they have never seen a tax increase they don’t like.

Since gas prices are established on a world market now, the most important thing to do is to develop the additional reserves we have domestically and to create incentives for alternative, non-petroleum fuel sources that are available now. I am a co-sponsor of the Dependence Reduction through Innovation in Vehicles and Energy bill (HR 670) that would do just that. This may not lower prices in the short term, but it will do so in the long term while reducing our dependency on foreign oil.

REP. JOHN CAMPBELL

(R-Newport Beach)

It’s clear that we need to make finding alternative energy sources a priority, and I support those efforts.

However, punishing oil companies by taking away their incentives to invest in oil exploration or other capital projects that help America’s energy needs is not the way to go about it.

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER

(R-Huntington Beach)