We give the Gas Face!

The Gas Face! Yolanda & I decided to get rid of our huge gas guzzling, environmentally hazardous SUV (finally) and buy a Hybrid! (Better late than never, right?) Buying a 2007 SUV was an emotional decision instead of a smart one, and there was some repenting to do! We were paying about $75 every two days in gas! Remember January 2001? Those were the good old days before George Bush and Dick Cheney took office. At the time, gas cost just a dollar fifty-one a gallon. And now? $3? $3.50? Even four dollars for a gallon of gas! The cost of driving to work and flying to visit family keeps going up. Meanwhile, Exxon-Mobil made more profits last year than any corporation in human history! It's long past time for real energy independence in America and that starts by making sure oil companies pay their fair share. Send a message to your Senator right now: http://www.StopPainAtThePump.org Give em the gas face!! (See exhibit 2) Members of Congress still don't get it. Along with oil companies and lobbyists, they underestimate the power of a movement of people from all walks of life. This debate isn't just about dollars and cents. It's about real people whose lives are suffering while corporations continue to rake in record profits. Here are just one of the many stories folks have submitted. Rhonda in Sebastopol, California: I am disabled and a very low fixed income: not enough to live on......The lowest gas prices here where I live have risen to $4.29/gallon!!! This insane, and I can't afford to drive my car to healthcare appts., etc. So my health is being greatly affected by this besides my financial debt from battling illness for 15 years. Ok, so as usual we as American's are now scrambling to find new ways of fuel and energy, in a too little too late situation where we could have avoided this mess a long time ago! When my wife & I were on a much needed vacation, we rented a GREAT movie called, "Who Killed the Electric car?" www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar

It's a 2006 documentary film that explores the birth, limited commercialization, and subsequent death of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the 1990s. The film explores the roles of automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, the US government, batteries, hydrogen vehicles, and consumers in limiting the development and adoption of this technology. The film deals with the history of the electric car, its development and commercialization, mostly focusing on the General Motors EV1, which was made available for lease in Southern California, after the California Air Resources Board passed the ZEV mandate in 1990, as well as the implications of the events depicted for air pollution, environmentalism, Middle East politics, and global warming. The film details the California Air Resources Board's reversal of the mandate after suits from automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, and the George W. Bush administration. It points out that Bush's chief influences, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Andrew Card, are all former executives and board members of oil and auto companies. A large part of the film accounts for GM's efforts to demonstrate to California that there was no demand for their product, and then to take back every EV1 and dispose of them. A few were disabled and given to museums and universities, but almost all were found to have been crushed; GM never responded to the EV drivers' offer to pay the residual lease value ($1.9 million was offered for the remaining 78 cars in Burbank before they were crushed). Several activists are shown being arrested in the protest that attempted to block the GM car carriers taking the remaining EV1s off to be crushed. The film explores some of the reasons that the auto and oil industries worked to kill off the electric car. Wally Rippel is shown explaining that the oil companies were afraid of losing out on trillions in potential profit from their transportation fuel monopoly over the coming decades, while the auto companies were afraid of losses over the next six months of EV production. Others explained the killing differently. GM spokesman Dave Barthmuss argued it was lack of consumer interest due to the maximum range of 80–100 miles per charge, and the relatively high price. Oil companies fearful of losing business to a competing technology, they supported efforts to kill the ZEV mandate. They also bought patents to prevent modern NiMH batteries from being used in US electric cars. The federal government joined in the auto industry suit against California, has failed to act in the public interest to limit pollution and require increased fuel economy, has promoted the purchase of vehicles with poor fuel efficiency through preferential tax breaks, and has redirected alternative fuel research from electric towards hydrogen. The film also explores the future of automobile technologies including a deeply critical look at hydrogen vehicles and an upbeat discussion of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle technologies. None the less, our choices today are Hybrids, and it's time to forget about the fact that they look ugly and suck it up and get one. :-) Speech