Truckers polled favor drilling for more oil in U.S.

The Trucker Staff

4/29/2008

LITTLE ROCK — By an overwhelming margin, truckers participating in a recent poll on www.thetrucker.com said that drilling for more oil in the U.S. would help offset high diesel prices.

Answering the question, “What methods do you favor for curbing and offsetting high diesel prices,” 48 percent of the respondents said the U.S. should “allow drilling for oil.”

Some 31 percent said a law to mandate a 100 percent pass-thru to drivers of fuel surcharges would curb and offset high diesel prices.

On April 24, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, introduced a bill that would require 100 percent of fuel surcharges levied on shipping customers to be passed through to the person actually paying for the fuel, in most cases the truck driver.

Some of the comments of truckers included:

“For a short-term fix, drill in U.S. and build refineries for [a] long-term solution.”

“We need to quit making the worth of the dollar drop. And if others beside truckers would come together to confront the cost of oil/gas and work together as a nation, we could do something about it. Quit giving aid to other countries and give aid to Americans.”

“[Build] New refineries and to heck with the green weenies that want to destroy our economy to turn the U.S. into a socialist country.”

“It is bull we can’t drill for oil here in Alaska because of a handful of liberal Democrats.”

“Lower the fuel tax on trucks.”