[cairns]

Levin wants free markets?? Puh-leez. Let's take the four major proposals in order:

Put a cop - a regulatory agency - on the beat in the energy markets to ensure these markets are free from excessive speculation and manipulation;

More regulation will just make your taxes go up and will do nothing to stop speculation or lower prices. What do the hundreds of thousands of employees at the Department of Energy do all day anyway? I agree there should be regulation to ensure free markets- but what specifically does he propose that will not increase the number of government employees and actually ensure that the markets are any freer than they are today? And where was Mr. Freemarket Levin (and the Democratic leadership for that matter) when we were talking about trade with Columbia a few weeks ago? As I recall he was protecting his beloved unions from a free market.

Stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve until prices are lower;

Uhh that's why it's called strategic. So quit thinking tactically. If we can't fill it at $4 bucks per what does that say about a real emergency? And if we're just waiting until the price of gas goes down why do we need all this other stuff?

Develop alternatives to fossil fuels......OK great... whose automakers revolutionized the industry by making small fuel efficient cars? Whose are at the forefront in developing hybrid alternatives? I don't think they're from Michigan. And what happened to the last great alternative the government so willingly subsidized, you know, ethanol? This is just more rhetorical ka-ka- too bad we can't harness Levin's hot air.

Windfall tax on oil companies. Right, let's incentivize them to make less money. Works with unions and car companies, right? No? Well oil companies are the devil. So this particular rhetorical ka-ka sounds good- oil companies aren't headquartered in his state.

Levin's just another Senate moron. Representing union morons who will be out of work because no one will want to buy gas sucking pickups and SUVs as the price of oil goes up. His overpaid constituents will be out of work and the auto companies that line his pockets might have to do something that they haven't done well for years- develop a product that the marketplace actually wants to buy.

George I can't believe you'd buy into his hype.