BANGOR – Standing only a few blocks away from where he announced his health care plan in May, U.S. Rep Tom Allen made another local appearance Wednesday to tout his strategy for addressing the country’s energy needs.

Wednesday’s event was similar to the previous one. He stood with a local couple at a podium outside an old house and said he had a plan to help people face sharply increasing living expenses.

But in an earlier meeting Wednesday with the editorial board of the Bangor Daily News, Allen did not hesitate to indicate whether energy costs or health care concerns are more important to Mainers.

“Heating oil,” he said when asked what potential voters talk to him about the most. “It was gasoline, and now it’s heating oil.”

He said if he can defeat Sen. Susan Collins in her re-election bid this fall, and if his fellow Democrats can win the White House and a 60-seat majority in the Senate, energy will be the second-most important item on the federal government’s agenda, right behind the Iraq war.

“We need a very aggressive strategy in these circumstances, and I have one,” he said at the afternoon press conference, standing in the yard of Wayne and Sonia Mallar’s Essex Street home.

Allen said there should be more drilling on American land under lease by oil companies. More than 90 million acres of domestic land is being leased by the oil industry but less than one-third of it is being drilled for oil, he said. By drilling on the remaining 68 million acres – which he said is roughly three times the size of Maine – it will boost the amount of domestically produced oil in the marketplace and decrease America’s dependence on foreign oil, according to Allen.

“That’s the fastest way to increase the oil supply here in America,” Allen said.

He also called for a home heating oil tax credit and for low-interest loans to help people weatherize their homes and pay their heating bills. The federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program should be fully funded to its $5.1 billion legislated limit, rather than at its current $3 billion level, he said, but more needs to be done.

“There are a lot of people in the middle class to whom LIHEAP is not available but who are struggling with their heating bills,” Allen said.

Nationwide, the average winter-long heating bill is expected to increase nearly $1,000, from $1,700 to $2,600, according to Allen. He said that for Mainers, their total winter heating costs are likely to be between $3,600 and $4,600.

“That’s a personal financial catastrophe, in many circumstances,” Allen said.

He also said federal regulators should investigate how much speculation in the oil market has driven up prices and that standards for fuel efficiency, which already is trending upward because of consumer demand for more fuel-efficient cars, should be raised. He said the average fuel efficiency for auto makers should be 55 miles per gallon by 2030.

“The Mallars and other Maine families deserve leadership in Washington,” Allen said. “That’s what this plan ultimately is all about.”

The Collins campaign took note of Allen’s statement Wednesday, however, and offered some criticism of the congressman’s record.

Kevin Kelley, spokesman for the Collins campaign, said in a statement that in 2005 Allen voted against expanding drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico – something he said that Collins supported. Kelley also connected Allen’s committee service in the House with the rise in oil prices.

“Unfortunately, since he left the House Armed Services Committee [in 2003] to join the Energy committee, the cost of oil has increased 321 percent, the cost of heating oil has increased 240 percent, and the cost of gasoline has increased by 172 percent,” Kelley said.

Kelley added that in a 10-point energy plan she proposed in April, Collins has set a goal of energy independence by 2020.

Carol Andrews, spokeswoman for Allen’s campaign, said in response that Collins voted in 2005 to give $14 billion in tax breaks and incentives to the oil industry. At that time, Andrews said, a barrel of oil cost $65, which was then a record high.

“Senator Collins voted then for the interests of Big Oil over the interests of Mainers, and a barrel of oil is now $141 and expected to climb as a result,” Andrews said in a statement. “Tom Allen voted against this measure because he believed then and does now that Mainers deserve the breaks, not Big Oil.”

After Allen’s press conference, he met for about an hour with a group of approximately 40 people at University College of Bangor to discuss energy issues.

Allen also promoted his health care plan Wednesday, visiting Hammond Street Senior Center in Bangor and Orono Commons, a nursing and rehabilitation facility on Bennoch Road. He is expected to make similar campaign stops today in Lincoln and Millinocket.

btrotter@bangordailynews.net

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