Editor:

I see Gary Trauner's comments on energy and wish to applaud them.

Why should we export our oil so we can buy more? Keep it and use it here. Let that be a condition of drilling in some of the special spots of our country. Another condition for opening up drilling for big oil could be for them to drop a billion or so of their profits into expanding or building refineries.

Seems to me that big oil and the Republicans' answer to four-dollar-a-gallon diesel is five dollar fuel. We need a long-term policy on energy that protects the consumer, not the producer, and Gary Trauner can do that.

In speaking of energy, Mr. Trauner is speaking of issues, not birthplaces. Perhaps his opponent could do the same.

LELAND "LJ" TURNER, Gillette