Franken Touts Energy Proposals

Al Franken is running for Senate in Minnesota. This article on Franken's energy proposals from the Bemidji Pioneer has a bit more information than the article I posted on Rep. Mark Udall Saturday. But I think that it shows how a campaign for a Senate seat doesn't have to move to the middle. With respect to drilling (and to be fair to my prior criticism of Udall), Franken does say that he thinks we should drill now and is pushing for drilling on areas where oil companies already have leases. However he follows up right away with the following bit of common sense:

“But we need to get off of this technology (oil), because we know that we’ve either reached or about to reach peak oil.”

Then towards the end of the article he says something that I believe every politican should have the integrity and strength to say to the face of all the oil executives and to all of those "drill now and drill often folks" that believe that the United States should continue to stay on this oil bender:

“We’re not going to drill our way out of this. … It won’t bring down oil prices, it simply won’t.”