South Dakota Congressional Delegation Generally Supportive of Drilling

The Argus Leader features some brief quotes from South Dakota's congressional delegation on drilling for more oil to ease our current energy crunch.

Senator John Thune gave the strongest endorsement:

Until we increase supply by safely tapping America's oil reserves in places like ANWR and off our coasts, we will continue to be held hostage by petro-dictators

Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin also gave solid support for drilling

offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR):
I support drilling both in the Outer Continental Shelf and in ANWR, as well as the increased use of renewable sources of energy

Senator Tim Johnson's support for drilling was there, but it was more tepid than Thunes or Herseth Sandlin's, and placed a strong emphasis on sticking it to those capitalistic oil companies in the short run:

I agree that additional oil supplies are part of the solution to high gasoline prices and I have supported additional drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, but I am most interested in providing immediate relief to high prices.

Go read the Argus Leader piece for the full quotes.

It is true that we could use some relief in the short run, but we didn't get ourselves into this mess overnight, and there aren't going to be any meaningful solutions to get ourselves out of it overnight.

We should have had an aggressive drilling strategy more than 10 years ago (if we had, we'd already be seeing that oil coming out of ANWR today), and made it easier to build more refineries (it's nearly impossible now, due to interference from environmental extremists, regulations, permit requirements, startup costs, etc.). With our short-sightedness and pandering to extremists, we've made this high-priced bed we're now forced to sleep in.

But we can wake up and get started RIGHT NOW to build energy independence we will still need tomorrow.