Dear Editor,

How quickly everything has changed. You may not have liked President Trump personally but a little over a year ago, as he was being blamed for everything that happened, we were oil and energy independent and gas prices were low. Today Joe Biden is desperate to blame others, especially the oil companies, for the high gas prices, as we aren’t oil independent any more? With the stroke of a pen many of Biden’s executive orders shut down pipelines and oil production here at home so now we are buying oil from other countries that hate us and gas prices are out of sight. It appears we are going blindly down the rabbit hole of “Climate Change” and the “New Green Deal” without considering the effect on our everyday life?

It’s apparent that Biden and his Washington Democrats are on an all-out push to regulate and legislate America’s Fossil Fuels which are coal, petroleum and natural gas — the primary source of the world’s energy. Fossil fuels are used for heating, electricity, transportation, computers, cosmetics, paint, household appliances, pesticides, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals and plastics. Natural gas generates an increasing share of U.S. electricity and is used as transportation fuel.

Products made from plastics include containers for storage, water bottles, utensils, personal care products like toothpaste, soaps, cosmetics and deodorants. Building materials for our homes would be limited. The roof could not be made of asphalt shingles because along with the tar paper used in roofing both are derived from fossil fuels. Products from solvents include oil based paints, household cleaners, paint strippers, nail polish remover. Diesel fuel products include tires, caulking, life jackets, dyes, golf balls. Motor oil products include boats, fishing hooks, trash bags, tool boxes, petroleum jelly and these are only a few. The vast majority of everything we touch each and every day is derived from some sort of fossil fuel and raw material. I’ve read there are over 6,000 products.

Over the years the Ohio Valley has made significant progress with emissions and clean air. I can remember as a child growing up in the 1950s in Wheeling when almost everyone heated their homes with coal. The steel mills and factories’ smokestacks emitted a lot of smoke and pollution including all the trains rolling in and out of the B&O Railroad station and every day the air was heavy with smoke. It isn’t like that anymore.

As a lifelong Democrat, I’m sorry to say that the Washington Democrats of today are not the Democrats of my grandparents or parents’ day. My parents were staunch Democrats and were proud of our government and supported it in any way they could. They felt a strong feeling of confidence, trust and safety. They believed their government represented them, but not today.

Can we be more efficient and creative with what is in our control? Yes! But Biden and his Washington Democrats want you to believe we can become a world without fossil fuels and that solar panels, wind turbines and batteries will be our main source of energy. What has happened to reason and common sense?

Judi Phillips

Bethesda