The United States needs to develop an aggressive energy policy with strong emphasis on “more nuclear, more exploration, more conservation and alternative energy,” U.S. Sen. Dr. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee, said Thursday in a telephone media conference from Washington.

“The world is unwinding in front of us right now with the alliance between both North Korea and Iran and Iran and Venezuela,” Coburn said.
He said developing an aggressive policy for the development of biofuels would be good for Oklahoma’s farmers.

“I’m very excited about the future for Oklahoma agriculture, because I think world events are going to lead us to depend on farmers for energy,” he said.

Two biofuel plants are planned for this area — an ethanol plant is to be built north of Wagoner, and a biodiesel plant is planned to be built near the Port of Muskogee just off the Muskogee Turnpike.

“It looks like we’re going to have pretty good commodity prices for the next few years just on the basis that we’re going to be forced to, and we need to convert to biofuels,” Coburn said. “That’s going to be great news.”

Coburn said that he thinks it is a shame that Congress is leaving Washington this week without having addressed legislation that would help farmers who have been adversely affected by drought and fuel prices this year.

He thinks the issue will be addressed in January or February but he is concerned that the legislation should help those who need it most.

The proposed Senate bill spends $8.8 billion dollars. Of that, $300 million is for small businesses.

“We already have a Small Business Administration,” he said. “We’re going to give people money who failed to buy crop insurance? We’ll never have a crop insurance program that will work if we keep subsidizing people who won’t take out crop insurance.”

Farmers today are part of an international economy and China’s manipulation of its currency hurts America in that world market.

“They are killing our exportability,” Coburn said. “What they’re doing is robbing our country. They’re taking our assets by having a falsely lowered (currency) value. We’re buying their stuff, and they are owning us.

“It’s just like our oil dependency ... If we would have leadership on conservation in oil, we would drop the price $10 a barrel on oil tomorrow,” Coburn said. “But we haven’t had any leadership on that.”

Coburn also discussed a number of other issues, including the report issued Wednesday on the war in Iraq.

He said it is wrong for America to withdraw just to get out of the war.

“We have groups of people that have told us they want to destroy us,” Coburn said. “They want to destroy the West. They want to do whatever they can to disrupt our life.

“I think we should believe them,” he said. “That’s gotten lost in part of this story.”

If all the United States wants to do is get its troops out and not win the war, he’s for bringing the troops home tomorrow, Coburn said.

“But if the goal is to win the battle to secure us and the future from terrorism, then we have to rethink this easy tendency just to run away because it is tough.”

He said he is very worried that if we walk away now, that in five or 10 years, “we’ll be very, very sorry.”