Mike Padgett (T-G Photo by John I. Carney) [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

In an interview at the Times-Gazette offices, Padgett also said employers who hire illegal aliens need to be prosecuted and fined more aggressively.

Padgett, who served as Knox County clerk for more than 20 years, is running against former Tennessee Democratic Party chair Bob Tuke in the Democratic primary for the Senate seat currently held by Republican Lamar Alexander.

Padgett said there's no one solution to America's current energy problems.

"If there was a silver bullet right now, somebody would have found that," he said. However, he discussed ideas he said would help with the problem.

Brazil, he said, is successfully using sugar cane as a source for ethanol. Padgett said sugar cane has advantages over corn-based or soy-based ethanol, but the problem right now is that it grows best in locations like Louisiana. Padgett said that studies are being done at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on ways to genetically alter sugar cane so that it could grow "anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line."

Padgett said the U.S. can't convert too much farmland for biofuel use, however, if it expects to have available and affordable food.

Another key sugar cane producer is Cuba. Padgett said Cuba, located just off the U.S. coast, is also a possible oil source, and Russia and China are exploring the area for offshore oil drilling. Padgett said normalizing U.S. relations with Cuba might open that area for U.S. drilling, which he said would be preferable to drilling in pristine areas of Alaska.

Padgett also said that nuclear technology has come a long way since the days of the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island disasters and that nuclear energy may also need to be a part of the solution. Solar energy and wind energy, especially in the strip running from Texas to the Dakotas, may also be a part of the answer, he said, and new technologies for taking advantage of them will have the benefit of creating new jobs.

Immigration

Padgett recalled that when he was a boy, migrant workers came and went, participating in various harvests as they moved from region to region.

"Nobody thought a thing about it," he said.

Today, however, he said the illegal immigration problem needs to be addressed. He said it would be impossible to suddenly send all 14-16 million illegal immigrants home overnight, but he said the U.S. needs to get serious about enforcing existing laws, in large part by getting tougher on the U.S. businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

"It's just as much our fault, or more, than it is their fault."

Iraq

Padgett also favors a speedy withdrawal from Iraq, although he said an immediate pullout might put some U.S. service members in harm's way. He said Iraq now has a democratically-elected government and a military force and that America doesn't need to keep spending money on Iraqi and Afghani infrastructure that could be spent at home on the U.S. infrastructure. He recalled U.S. Sen. Albert Gore Sr.'s advocacy of the interstate highway system and its importance to the U.S.

Qualifications

Padgett said his work as Knox County Clerk was focused on serving his constituents and solving problems. Because of license tag renewals, marriage licenses, passports and so on, people have more personal contact with the county clerk than any other county official, he said.

"All government starts at the local level," he said.

After retiring from the clerk's office in January 2007, he was contacted by Tennessee Democratic Party chair Gray Sasser -- who is himself the son of a former U.S. senator -- and encouraged to run for the Alexander seat. Padgett said he talked the decision over with his wife and his adult children and decided to run. He likened his campaign to Harry Truman's 1934 Senate campaign, in which Truman ran a low-budget but successful campaign against a Republican incumbent.

The party primary will take place Aug. 7; the party nominees will face each other in the Nov. 4 general election.