The Democrats are not trying to solve the energy problem. They are plainly engaged in a process to grab more power to fuel their socialist agenda at the expense of the people they are supposed to represent. Their fuel will clearly be much more expensive that what we are paying at the pump now!

The compromise should be that the Republicans and Democrats would agree to not not risk shutting down the government by agreeing to not attach any energy plan of any sort to any appropriations bill associated with running the day-to-day business of the government.

The approach should be simple and transparent. A difficult task for the the embattled Congress in a war with itself.

Barack Obama already has proposed a comprehensive energy plan to solve the energy problem. See:
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/factsheet_energy_speech_080308.pdf

Since his plan has already been written, Senator Obama should be the agent of change he has been talking about since December, and have the political courage to file a bill with his solution to the problem. Congress should take a vote on it now. In turn and hopefully on the same day, the Republicans should forthwith file a bill according to their plan and submit their solution to Congress for a vote.

The voters will then have a clear picture on where their Senator and Congressman stands on the issue. The bonus will be that we might even be able to measure the success of lowering gas prices before the election.

In the alternative, if neither side or only one side has a solution in place, the voters will then know who the real agents of change really are, or who is still hiding behind their October 31st Halloween mask on November 4th.