MOKENA -- Two days after returning from a trip to Moscow where he attended the graduation ceremony of a Russian university on whose board of trustees he serves, 11th CD candidate Marty Ozinga will be pumping gas for four hours in southwest suburban Mokena today. The owner of Ozinga Concrete, with 30 locations and a fleet of cement trucks, plans to discuss the high price of gasoline with those drivers whose tanks he'll be filling.
“I know what people are going through when it comes to paying for fuel,” Ozinga said. “Our business uses 4 million gallons of diesel fuel each year. If the price of fuel goes up just 50 cents, that’s $2 million that we have to eat. And of course, it has gone up by much more than just 50 cents.
Illinois has the nation's highest gas prices, and our system of double-taxing needs to be revamped, Ozinga plans to tell the Gas City at LaPorte and LaGrange Road's customers. His opponent in the congressional race, State Senator Debbie Halvorson (D-Crete), opposes any state gas tax cut.
But Ozinga's not stopping with the high cost of gas, he plans to talk about the need to incentivize conserving energy, to build technologically-progressive refineries and to drill for oil in Alaska, as well as promote alternative fuel mixtures.
“We didn’t get into this mess in one day or even one year, and we shouldn’t kid ourselves that it won’t take at least that long to undo the failed policies of the career politicians,” Ozinga continued. “My candidacy is based on the principle that America is the best country on earth, but we need serious action to keep it so."
