"What we need to do today is prepare to be completely energy self-sufficient by 10 years from now," Representative Todd Tiahrt said.

Tiahrt's plan calls for increased drilling in the U.S. including along the continental shelf and the A.N.W.R. region of Alaska.

"We can't just hope to wait on the wind today and drive smaller cars," Tiahrt said. "Our economy needs something more and this is how we get it in the interim while we develop new technology."

Tiahrt believes that new technology includes solar, wind, and increased nuclear energy.

Across town, Senator Sam Brownback discussed his own plan called the Open Fuel Standard Act.

"The whole idea of this is to get us off the addiction to oil," Senator Sam Brownback said.

Brownback proposes doing that by changing the automobile. The proposed Open Fuel Standard Act would require by 2012 that 50 percent of new cars be flex fuel vehicles.  By 2015, that number would jump to 80 percent.

The new flex fuel cars could run off of gasoline, ethanol, or methanol.

"You'll start to get more E-85, or fuels that you can blend yourself," Brownback said. "You can get 50 percent ethanol 50 percent gas as a way of changing our dependency."

While both Brownback and Tiahrt have slightly different approaches to easing the pain at the pump, both agree it is needed and will take years to accomplish.

"We can do something to bring down the price of gasoline, but we can't do it by sitting on our hands like we have for the last decade," Tiahrt said.

Senator Brownback's bill will be introduced in the senate Tuesday. Tiahrt's bill to open up U.S. drilling, likely won't be introduced until the fall.