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University of Wisconsin Students for McCain held a sparsely attended town hall meeting on energy Thursday evening in Tripp Commons, the first of four that will be held in the weeks before the election.

UW junior Stephen Duerst, a member of Students for McCain and College Republicans, spoke to the crowd of four students about McCain’s energy policy and the importance of students voting for McCain in the upcoming election.

“These issues may seem distant to you now, but when you get out of college in the next few years, it’s not going to be as easy as hopping on your bike and riding down University [Avenue],” Duerst said.

Duerst spoke about the several facets of McCain’s energy policy, which includes lifting bans on offshore drilling to tap into the oil and natural gas reserves off the coast of the United States.

“We are currently the only nation in the world that has put a ban on the amount of oil and natural gas we can extract … and this should not be happening, because we still have several years’ worth of oil and natural gas left within our reserves,” Duerst said. “The key to lowering oil and gas prices in the U.S. is to use our reserves.”

Duerst continued to speak about McCain’s plan to increase tax breaks to businesses to encourage them to develop more fuel-efficient vehicles and reduce greenhouse emissions. He added the importance of incentives to researchers to advance clean coal technologies, as well as increases in the use of nuclear power and Flex-Fuel technologies.

“John McCain is thinking smart,” Duerst said. “He will involve less government and offer more incentives to private businesses.”

However, Matt Lehrich, a spokesperson for Campaign for Obama, disagrees.

“John McCain is four more years of the same thing we’ve had for the last eight years,” said Lehrich.

Lehrich added McCain would not support a tax relief bill for middle-class families because it did not provide tax breaks for oil companies, and that despite what McCain has said, he has not made any real commitment to renewable energy.

Students for McCain will continue to host town hall events every Thursday night at 7 p.m. at Memorial Union until the presidential election on Nov. 4, with topics including economy and foreign affairs.