Obama wants new direction on energy

By Chad Livengood

Barack Obama laid out his opposition to opening up American land and waterways to more drilling for oil at a rally in Springfield on Wednesday. The presumed Democratic nominee said authorizing oil companies to drill for more domestic oil and gas in Alaska and off coastal shores will not solve the country's energy crisis. "The oil companies right now have 68 million acres of leases that they are not using," Obama told an energized crowd of 1,550 packed into the Glendale High School gymnasium. "They are holding land that they're not drilling and now they want to get some more (land). And we've got no guarantee they're going to use it." "There's no law that says the oil is only to be used by Americans," Obama added. Instead, Obama says the country needs a national energy independence initiative similar to the 1940s Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb and the 1960s Apollo mission to get a man on the moon.

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