WE READ OUR MAIL…AND HEAR YOU!

Over the last four weeks, a very common message seen in our email responses from our GOP readers has been in relation to the price of fuel. Space prevents a complete response, but we’ll provide some facts, links to other resources and contact information for those that need to hear from you.

First, no new refineries have been built in almost 30 years, refineries that would increase the supply of finished products in the United States to match rising demands due to legislation and environmental regulation. Domestic drilling has already been addressed on two separate occasions by Senator Lamar Alexander, who proposed off-shore drilling along the continental United States. Environmental theories and fears of spills have prevented American companies from providing oil domestically while foreign nations, operating in “international waters” just outside the United States’ maritime boundaries, tap into the same oil deposits American companies are forbidden to tap, even though the foreign nations’ drilling platforms raise the same environmental issues as they are located only a few miles further from the American coast.

The weak dollar adds insult to our domestic supply injury. Oil, metals and grains are purchased on the global markets in dollars. While the credit markets are correcting for those entering into loans who couldn’t afford, interest rates are being lowered by the Federal Reserve to aid this group of people and the lending markets. This lowers the dollar’s value since investors want the power of their investment, the use of their dollar, to gain interest at a higher rate of return. This weaker dollar against gold and the Euro reduces our purchasing power, therefore, all imports purchased by the dollar will be at a higher price. Currently, Republicans are pushing to keep your money in your pocket by extending the tax cuts that are due to expire in 2010, along with passing pro-business legislation, while Democrats have voted in the U.S. Senate and House to increase the tax burden of every taxpaying American by an average of $2,100 annually, with plans to expand regulation and taxes on business and capital gains.

Also adding to energy “costs” is the lack of construction of new nuclear plants since the 1970s. Nuclear energy, a common technology in East Tennessee with TVA’s nuclear facilities dotted along the Tennessee River, is gaining new-found attention. Having built 58 nuclear plants since the 1970’s, France generates almost 80% of all of its electricity needs via nuclear energy. The United States has built zero new plants, paralyzed by the fear sowed by environmental extremists. The cries of danger that once eminated from the environmental left has proven to ring very hollow in watching, from afar, the decades of safe, clean and cheaper nuclear efficiency of France.

America could be the Middle East of energy should clean coal technology be developed and utilized. There have been improvements in technologies and “clean coal” methods. Yet, again, environmentalists who have no room for a compromise with “Global Warming” and the “Carbon Footprint” theories, label coal burning as a “dirty” and “carbon-producing” form of energy. This week, Democrat Governor Phi Bredesen is supporting a fifty-fold increase in the tax on coal mining companies in Tennessee. Coal company executives warned a Senate subcommittee that the huge tax increase could drive many of them out of the state, destroying jobs in Tennessee. And the coal tax increase will most certainly result in Tennesseans feeling a greater pinch in their pocketbook - Tennessee’s coal-burning power plants produce 60 percent of our electricity.

While we absolutely must pursue a stewardship of our environment that prevents harm, benefits our health, and protects its beauty, energy policy needs to be driven by proven science rather than theories and hypotheticals. There is a large and growing body of scientific research and literature that draws into serious question much of the move to “reduce global warming” through “reducing carbon emissions.” No one wants to live in a polluted environment or to injure our world, but policy driven by the fear-mongering left that chokes our economy and impacts our food supply is not sound.

A lesson from November 2006: In campaigning for the Congress, Democrats promised a reduction in fuel prices-specifically “lower gas prices.” Their rhetoric touched the emotions of voters who want to see an improved energy policy resulting in solutions. The record of fact proves that liberal left policies that are the foundation of Democrat policy is harmful to our economy, don’t utilize or incentivize the technologies that exist and those yet to be developed and drive into the distant future the solution to our energy needs.

Republicans in Congress have introduced legislation that honors the environment by pursuing hydrogen and fuel-cell technology, domestic drilling legislation, support of nuclear technology with an increased role and the pursuit of clean coal technology.

Members of Congress need to hear from you. Contact information for all Members is available at www.house.gov & www.senate.gov. Thank you for your emails. Please send your thoughts to the men and women who are able to impact policy and improve our energy situation with common sense legislation and solutions, not just promises and theories.

SOLUTIONS! NOT SOUNDBITES!

www.SolutionsTN.com

The Tennessee Republican Party launched the new website, www.SolutionsTN.com this past week to provide a single source of fact and information for citizens who want to research candidates, policy stances and contrast the Republican message of solutions to Democrat soundbites. The platform of the site will become more interactive and in-depth when candidates release policy and issue statements as the fall campaign season approaches. Visit SolutionsTN.com regularly to see principled stances in contrast to the poll-driven promises and convenient clichés that have become so popular.

MCCAIN’S MARCH TO THE WHITE HOUSE

John McCain traveled to Israel, Iraq and Europe this week. Headlines from Israel reflected the warm welcome extended to John McCain who has a long-standing record in the U.S. Senate as an advocate for Israel as a partner in peace in the Middle East and an invaluable ally to the United States.

In remarks, McCain made clear that appeasement and compromise with terrorist organizations were not part of his foreign policy stance. The Jerusalem Post reports McCain “harshly criticized the Hamas regime there, which - he said - was “committed to the extermination of the State of Israel.” McCain continued, “It is very difficult to negotiate with an organization that is dedicated to your extinction.” Until Hamas renounces violence, accepts past agreements with Israel, and recognizes Israel’s right to exist, no such direct talks could take place, he said.

Visit www.JohnMcCain.com to get updates, donate and volunteer.

DAVY CROCKETT WOULD DEFINITELY BE A REPUBLICAN!

Davy Crockett, famous Tennessee native, frontiersman, U.S. Congressman, and lead Volunteer at the Alamo would find he’d have to leave Old Betsy, his beloved gun, behind in his home state after TN Democrats have defeated legislation supporting individual gun rights in Tennessee.

Tennessee Democrats, led by Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, have shown again that they say one thing in their districts back home and vote like San Francisco liberals relative to our 2nd Amendment Rights. In a heavy-handed move, Naifeh stacked a House subcommittee with anti-gun Democrats and also voted in the subcommittee, as the Speaker may do, with the result that Naifeh and his anti-gun Democrat colleagues killed pro-gun rights legislation ranging from the right to carry in a restaurant to carrying a gun for protection in a state park.

Regardless of the statements made by any member of the Tennessee House on any issue, the first vote cast is for leadership. Many “pro-gun” Democrats repeatedly return “anti-gun” Jimmy Naifeh to the Speaker’s position.

Ironically, Speaker Naifeh is escorted by an armed state trooper for protection - protection he and his anti-gun Democrat allies continue to deny you your right to provide for yourself and your family.

Voters and organizations who value your Constitutional right to protect yourself need to vote FOR and endorse those you KNOW support your beliefs and stop voting for those who keep playing politics with the issue of gun rights, among many others.

The Tennessee Republican Party is committed to candidates who support the 2nd Amendment Right to bear arms and protect our families.

STAYING TRUE TO HIS ROOTS ALEXANDER GIVES A TASTE OF TENNESSEE

By Alison McSherry, Roll Call Staff

Crossing the threshold into Sen. Lamar Alexander’s suite in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, it feels as though you’ve left Washington and entered the backwoods of Tennessee.

Rather than covering his reception area with the crisp coat of paint that’s standard on Capitol Hill, the Tennessee Republican mounted a graying barn wall decorated with relics from Appalachia.

“My thought was that Tennessee and Tennesseans are more interesting than I am,” Alexander said during a recent tour, as he admired the wall.

The relics, which include a miner’s hat and a fox-skin scarf, are on loan from the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, Tenn. “The eastern part of Tennessee was settled real early after The Revolution,” Alexander noted.

Hanging near the center of the wall is a large guitar made out of tiny brown sticks.

“That’s a guitar made by a prisoner out of matchsticks,” the Senator said, pointing to the large instrument. “He had some time on his hands.”

When Alexander first ran for governor of Tennessee in 1978, he began his campaign by walking across the state and meeting his future constituents. He walked 1,000 miles over the course of six months and spent the night at various homes, where he had the opportunity to talk with fellow Tennesseans and eat home-cooked meals.

“I was in the best shape of my life,” the Senator said, gesturing to the framed map that he used to plan his route. “[Tennesseans would] have me to dinner at their houses. They’d be cooking all day and they’d give me second and third helpings. So I was eating a lot and exercising a lot.”

Alexander wore red and black plaid flannel shirts while he walked so the people in the Volunteer State would recognize him. One of these famed shirts hangs in his office in a glass case. He also has been known to break out a plaid shirt on special occasions in his home state, such as parades.

Alexander came to the Senate in 2003, as a successor to Fred Thompson (R), whose photo hangs alongside Al Gore’s (D) and other former Senators from Tennessee in the conference room.

“These are my predecessors,” he said, pointing to the photos. “You notice a lot of them have one bad affliction: They all run for president.”

Alexander ran for president himself, in 1996 and again in 2000. But unlike Gore, he never made it to the nominating convention. Still, he keeps a colorful chessboard in his office with playing pieces reminding visitors of the Tennessee-centric race that could have been if he and Gore ever had the opportunity to face each other in the general election. The piece representing Alexander is dressed in a plaid shirt. The board was a gift from a craftsman in Iowa.

Even though he has not had a chance to be president, Alexander, who first arrived in Washington as a legislative aide for then-Sen. Howard Baker (R) in 1967, has had the opportunity to meet many presidents. Over the course of his 40-year political career, Alexander has met or worked with Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan. Pictures commemorating the meetings also hang in the conference room.

“This is Richard Nixon in a Republican leadership meeting in 1970 when I was working in the White House as a Congressional relations aide,” Alexander said, gesturing to a black and white framed photo. “The other young man on the corner over here is Pat Buchanan. We were the two aides. I got to see a lot of stuff - still do.”

The hallway leading visitors from the conference room to Alexander’s personal office contains one of the more unusual items in his suite: a photo of a bug that was named after him. The Cosberella lamaralexanderi was found one summer in the Great Smoky Mountains. The researchers who discovered the insect named it after the Senator because they thought it looked as though it was wearing a red and black plaid shirt.

“It’s a pretty cute bug, actually,” Alexander laughed. “I might put it on my résumé.”

The Senator’s personal office pays homage to two of his heroes: his former boss, Baker, and former Tennessee and Texas Gov. Sam Houston. Alexander sits behind a desk that once belonged to Baker, while a portrait of Houston looks over his right shoulder.

“Sam Houston is one of my favorite people in American history and I admire him,” Alexander said. “He grew up in my hometown of Maryville and he was the governor of Tennessee before he was the governor of Texas, which most people forget.”

The office is also filled with dozens of walking sticks, some of which were gifts during Alexander’s campaign across Tennessee and others that he’s collected. One belonged to Franklin Delano Roosevelt while another, kept in a glass case, was once Houston’s. The stick was broken and left at Tulip Grove on Andrew Jackson’s estate shortly after Houston visited Jackson on his deathbed. Alexander received the walking stick 20 years ago and added it to his collection.

Hanging above the cane is a handwritten note that Houston composed while in Congress. The letter, a reminder of how times have changed, reads: “My dear sir, when will you be in? If you come by I will be happy to see you.”

“That’s what Senators used to do,” Alexander said, smiling. “They didn’t have these staffs.”

The rest of Alexander’s office is peppered with mementos from his Southern state. There is a gold record commemorating Elvis Presley, photos of landscapes and framed concert posters from Hank Williams and Johnny Cash.

“What I’m trying to do is help people,” the Senator said of his office. “If they’re Tennesseans and they come here, [I want them] to feel comfortable. And if they’re not Tennesseans, [I want to] give them a taste of Tennessee.”