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Kirk, Biggert Announce Energy Plan

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Two suburban Republican lawmakers have been keeping an eye on the gas crisis.

As CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports, they believe America should spend billions of tax dollars to develop new sources of energy and end our addiction to foreign oil.

Under their plan, new nuclear power plants, wind-driven turbines and solar energy units would pop up across America, not to mention thousands of service stations switching from petroleum-based fuels to bio-fuels made from grass and other non-food plant sources. Kernels of corn would once again be for eating.

Those were the highlights of an alternative energy proposal offered by DuPage County Congresswoman Judy Biggert and North Shore Congressman Mark Kirk.

"With gas prices so high, it's time for a new energy policy in the U.S.," Kirk said.

Facing democratic challengers trying to make hay from high gasoline prices, he and Biggert spoke on the same day presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain called for taxpayers to offer a $300 million prize for inventing a practical car battery with triple the power any now has.

Biggert said, "It's taken a long time for the American people to come around, but I think they are finally getting it."

With charts and the Adler Planetarium as backdrop, the suburban Republicans and local scientists said America needs to summon the same sense of urgency with which we went to the moon.

Matt Davis said, "The goals of the Apollo Energy Independence Act are three-fold: lower gas costs, boost alternative energies, and improve energy efficiency."

As proposed by Biggert and Kirk, the Apollo initiative would offer the bulk of its $22 billion in the form of tax credits other tax breaks.

For his part, Kirk's challenger this November, Democrat Dan Seals, said that endorsed a version of the Apollo initiative in 2006 and blamed "Bush-Kirk policies" for current high prices.

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