To the editor,
I read Gary Truitt’s editorial (“Energy policies: Could we please see a tiny bit of common sense” – page 4, May 20), and I have to disagree with his premise that Presidents Carter and Obama are the problem with energy policies in this country.

Mr. Truitt is wrong about President Carter being the architect of the original energy crisis.

The only thing that Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama have is they both were handed an economic mess from prior administrations.
Mr. Truitt is off a couple of years on OPEC’s withholding oil. I worked at General Motors from 1973 to 1997, and this is how it really was: President Nixon was in office in 1974 when OPEC started cutting production, causing massive gas shortages in late 1973 and 1974. This caused layoffs in the auto industry that didn’t turn around until 1976.

Presidents Nixon and Ford did nothing to move to alternative fuels; Carter tried and wasn’t successful. Enter the Reagan years, and nothing was done then, either. Bush No. 1 was the same.
President Clinton tried to do something about alternative fuels, only to be stopped by Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott. President Bush No. 2, we know, didn’t help the biosoy or ethanol business – let alone wind, solar or anything else.

I think Mr. Truitt needs to research his history a little better and present the facts more accurately.

Maybe he’s not old enough to remember the recessions from 1973 to the present, but I do because I lived through them all.

I hope that Mr. Truitt doesn’t go down the Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck road of no facts – only blame.

We need to get all parties together and fix these problems; not lay blame. I give President Obama credit for getting all parties to the table to solve problems, and for recommending alternatives to our energy needs. P.S., I am a farmer as well as a UAW-GM retiree.

Mike Porter
Oakwood, Ohio