PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • March 11, 2022
Lawmakers are right to give their full attention to the high cost of energy as it goes careening upward following the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Few problems reach as many people or stress families in the same way. It’s clear where this has to go. A lot of people need relief now, so they can afford to use their car and heat their home, and still have something left for other necessities, many of which are also rising in price. But we also can’t find ourselves back in this spot, so reliant on cheap fossil fuels that we live at the whims of governments in places like Russia and Saudi Arabia, and every errand and tick up on the thermostat enriches them while polluting the planet. Ultimately, the only way to keep Americans from feeling the pinch of the unstable, unsustainable market in fossil fuels is to get us off them.