U.S. Senator Mike Crapo is calling on his Senate colleagues to seek a balanced, bipartisan solution to the high energy prices facing the country.

The Idaho Republican says current legislation that focuses solely on energy speculators in financial markets needs to be augmented with aggressive plans for new energy production, conservation and alternative energy efforts.

US Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) comments

Crapo noted that 86 billion barrels of oil may be untapped off the nation’s shores, or nearly eight times the amount of oil imported to the U.S. from the Persian Gulf over the last 15 years.

Oil shale deposits in Western states could total from 800 billion to 1.8 trillion barrels and could provide a hundred years of domestic energy. Crapo noted those reserves alone could do much to relieve recent supply and demand issues causing the increase in the price of gasoline and diesel fuel.