Contact: Bob Sturm, 703-396-6974; after 6 PM Eastern, Vi Shields or Bob Sturm, 703-906-6542, 703-307-8176

MANASSAS, Va., June 25 /Christian Newswire/ -- "It's time to hold liberals accountable for the energy crisis they have created," Richard A. Viguerie, publisher of ConservativeHQ.com, said.

"On energy and the environment, Republican Party leaders have run for the tall grass. It's up to grassroots conservatives to stand up for regular Americans and to expose what the liberals have done to us," he said.

Viguerie e-mailed conservative leaders and grassroots conservatives across the country, encouraging them to take up the fight to expose liberals' record on energy. His message included specific examples of liberal efforts to prevent the development of U.S. reserves of oil and gas and to block the use of energy technologies like nuclear power.

"Four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline represents a 'teaching moment' for conservatives," Viguerie said. "Along with the price of gasoline, the price of everything made out of oil and everything that requires lots of energy for manufacture or transportation – all those prices are rising rapidly. Add to that, big hikes in the price of food caused by the ethanol program.

"The American people, especially the poor, the elderly, working people, and small business people, are suffering greatly. We must channel Americans' anger toward those who deserve the blame – the environmental extremists, and those too timid or complacent to stand up to them.

"We must expose the role of those who worked to prevent the development of our oil and gas reserves, who blocked the full utilization of technologies like nuclear power, and who kept us dependent on dangerous foreign sources for energy."

Viguerie said his call to action was made necessary because of the utter collapse of Republican Party leadership on issues related to energy and the environment. "The Left has invested all its credibility, and bet its political future, on radical environmentalism. But the Republican Party has forgotten how to play offense, so it's up to grassroots conservatives to do the job ourselves.

"We've done it before, on such issues as the Catastrophic Health Act in the 1980s and HillaryCare in the '90s. These successful battles were led by grassroots activists – not by national Republican leaders.

"High energy prices caused by bad liberal policies exemplify perfectly the differences between conservative principles, which work in the real work, and liberals' failed ideology."

Viguerie urged conservatives to educate themselves on this issue and to expose liberals' record "in every venue open to us, including talk radio, TV, press releases, columns and op-ed articles, newsletters, interviews with the news media, letters to the editors, blogs, e-mails, and resolutions at political party and local government meetings."

He added: "We have an opportunity for conservatives to take ownership of the #1 issue in America this summer and advance the conservative cause while putting the Left on the defensive."

Viguerie's message to conservatives is posted online here.

 
NOTE TO EDITORS: Richard A. Viguerie pioneered political direct mail and has been called "one of the creators of the modern conservative movement" (The Nation magazine) and one of the "conservatives of the century" (The Washington Times). His latest book is Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big-Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause (Bonus Books), which, Jerome Corsi wrote in WorldNetDaily, is "destined to become a classic of conservative thinking" and "may be the most important conservative book written in the last quarter century."