Filling up their vehicles Thursday before the holiday weekend, Altoona residents disliked the $3.99-a-gallon price tag for gasoline, but they agreed there isn't much they can do about it.
Washing the windshield on her Jeep Cherokee at the Sheetz convenience store and restaurant on Pleasant Valley Boulevard, Theresa Murray said traveling requires as much money to reach a destination as her family will spend while there.
''We're not taking a vacation this summer because of the gas prices,'' she said, adding that she spends about three times as much to fill her vehicle. ''It used to be $25 every other week. Here, it's only about one-third full, and I paid $45.''
U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-9th District, visited Sheetz Thursday as part of a two-day district tour promoting his plan to lower gas prices and increase the nation's energy independence by expanding oil drilling and investing in renewable and alternative energy projects.
Shuster's legislation would open the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling, which he said would tap at least 8 billion barrels of oil and 29 cubic feet of natural gas.
It also would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, bringing in 1 million barrels a day in less than five years.
The bill also would require strict environmental standards related to drilling and create tax credits to develop coal-to-liquid fuel technology.
In a fact sheet about the latter issue last spring, the Natural Resources Defense Council warned the technology would increase coal mining hazards and increase carbon dioxide emissions, contributing to global warming.
Shuster said if the U.S. used its coal supply to create liquid fuels, it could produce 4.6 million barrels of liquid fuel a day, cutting crude oil imports by 40 percent.
Shuster's bill would create a trust fund to capture wildlife refuge revenues to pay for renewable and alternative energy.
He said increased drilling would bridge the gap between today's energy situation and the 10 to 15 years it may take to bring a dramatic increase in use of energy sources other than oil. It also eases the permitting process for nuclear power plants and offers tax credits for new construction.
''This is a comprehensive plan,'' he said. ''It's going to take someone figuring out how to mass produce and use a different source. Somewhere down the road, not in my lifetime, but in 50 or 60 years, there's not going to be oil.''
While Shuster's bill focuses on increasing oil supply, it does not address refinery capacity. With no new refineries built in the last three decades, Rep. Joe Pitts, R-16th District, last month resurrected his 2005 bill to identify three military bases scheduled for closure that would make good refinery locations.
Shuster hopes the two bills can work together.
Mirror Staff Writer Jessica VanderKolk is at 946-7465.
