A Promise to Lower Pump Prices - 8/27/2006

A Promise to Lower Pump Prices - 8/27/2006

Story by Sarah Cornell

EVANSVILLE - Ray McCormick says fuel prices have gone from a concern to a crisis. As a farmer in Vincennes, McCormick says this year he'll probably pay 50 grand for gas.

"It's cutting drastically into our profits. It makes it hard for someone like me, who has my son farming with me, to survive as a family farm," says McCormick.

McCormick's business isn't the only that's struggling. The Evansville Police Department tells NEWS 25 it's brainstorming ways to save by taking money out of officers pay checks if they take their patrol cars home.

Sheriff Ellsworth says his department has similar ideas.

"I've taken measures in the Sheriff's Department such as doubling up, putting two deputies in one car and asking a deputy to sit for a certain period and turn their car off to conserve fuel," says Ellsworth.

Ellsworth tells NEWS 25 a school in the 8th district even canceled a bus route to cut costs this year. He says through all of these local struggles Congress isn't helping the right people.

"We're subsidizing big oil companies who are making record profits instead of helping the people who really need it. It's gonna take people up there standing up, not bowing down to the oil companies calling from the sidewalks from the street corners. What we need to do to change the direction of this country and change the direction of our fuels," says Ellsworth.

NEWS 25 tried to contact Congressman John Hostettler for a comment on gas price but were not able to reach him. Ellsworth says two Ethanol Plants are being built in Posey County and he hopes more plants like those are yet to come.

http://www.ellsworthforcongress.com/articles_details.asp?id=121