Burns wrong on oil policy

In the June 29 Pilot, an op-ed piece by Sen. Conrad Burns "No short term fix for gas prices" states "we have not built a pipeline in many years and have not built a refinery in 30 years. These factors have created a perfect storm to increase gas prices."

What Sen. Burns failed to state was that the U.S. population has grown from 200 million to today's 300 million in the past 36 years. Sen. Burns also failed to mention that both the House and the Senate have failed to control and keep both legal and illegal immigration to reasonable levels. This is exactly why we are today short of oil refinery capacity.

Of the 100 million increase in U.S. population, 90 million are immigrants and their offspring. Only 10 million are our own kids.

In other words, Sen. Burns and Sen. Max Baucus, we in the U.S. have taken responsibility to control our population growth, keep our environment healthy and to leave this country a better place for our children. You, on the other hand, have ignored the negative effects of population growth, and I very much doubt our children's quality of life will be better than today's.

You need to deport all illegal immigrants and limit legal immigration to reasonable, sustainable levels. That's no more than 180,000 immigrants per year, not the current 3 million-plus or 10,000 immigrants arriving each and every day.

The paper had several more growth-related articles. I'd vote for no more growth in Whitefish and the Flathead. There are already way too many people here.

But the article on stormwater funding really got my goat. Every lot in town will be annually assessed $72 for a citywide stormwater improvement district. This is another issue that growth has primarily created.

So let the newcomers and developers pay for it. They don't need to be on welfare from the rest of us.

Ward McCartney

Whitefish