WHAS11 coverage

Send us your ideas on saving gas

Tell Us: Has the rising price of gas affected you and your activities?

Louisville, Ky. (WHAS11) - The gas prices are taking a major toll on everyone and politicians are now making that their push for your vote in the fall.

Tuesday Anne Northup and Congressman John Yarmuth got into a war of words all over your pain at the pump.

So what’s their solution to the problem?

WHAS11’s Mark Hebert talked with both of them to find out.

With gas pumps in the background behind her, Anne Northup held a news conference, hoping, like other republican challengers that she can pin rising gas prices on her democratic opponent.

Louisville Congressman John Yarmuth says that Northup, who took more than $300,000 from oil companies and their executives when she was in congress, shouldn’t be blaming democrats for high prices.

The crux of the debate is over how to stabilize gas prices.  Northup says the democratic controlled congress should do what republicans tried to do when they were in power; open the Alaskan national wildlife refuge and more U.S. shoreline to oil drilling.

Yarmuth and democrats have pushed to suspend shipments of oil into the U.S. reserves, forcing companies to drill on land where they already have permits and taxing oil company profits.

A University of Kentucky energy specialist told state lawmakers last week that democrats and republicans may both be wrong. 

He says, percentage wise, oil companies make no more profit than other companies.  And he says drilling in and off shore would only produce 2 million barrels of oil a day in the future.

Want to calculate how much you can save by taking a bus?

You can find out by clicking here for TARC's website.