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Michael Brune | This 12-Step Program Can Break US Oil Addiction    [

    Next Steps on Energy
    The New York Times | Editorial

    Monday 06 February 2006

    The early reaction to President Bush's promise to wean the United States from foreign oil was, in some cases, oddly off-key. The Saudi ambassador, for instance, seemed to wonder whether Mr. Bush had some sort of personal grudge against Mideast oil. Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, found it odd that someone would subsidize fuels other than oil. Yet there are some people in Congress who are prepared to take the president at his word, while giving his undernourished proposals the budgetary and regulatory heft they sorely need.

    The real question is not whether Mr. Bush's proposals are going to make life difficult for some people but whether they are tough and adventurous enough. The answer is plainly no. All the president has done is to give prominence to ideas about alternative fuels and new technologies that were mere afterthoughts in the 2001 Cheney energy report. This is progress of a sort; at least we are no longer talking about drilling our way out of dependency.

    Yet his actual budget proposals were pitiful. The $150 million the White House said it would commit to making biofuels more competitive, for instance, turns out to be $50 million less than the amount authorized by last year's energy bill. And while the president talks about a new generation of vehicles, he offers virtually nothing meaningful to help Detroit get there.

    These little gaps have been widely noted. But the biggest shortcoming is the total absence of a program that would deliver any of these dandy new technologies to the marketplace. By program we mean a uniform set of incentives - what the economists call market signals - that would drive American industry to build the more fuel-efficient vehicles and the cleaner power plants that we need.

    For vehicles, there are two ways to get there. One, favored by most research groups specializing in energy, is to greatly strengthen the fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks. The other, favored by many economists, is to enact a substantial gas tax. We like both. One way or another, through regulatory or market mechanisms, the country would soon be driving cars that were far more fuel-efficient.

    And how big a difference would this make? Mr. Bush described his dream of replacing 75 percent of Mideast oil as if it were some monster challenge, like the Marshall Plan or a mission to Mars. It's not. An increase in fuel-efficiency standards to 40 miles per gallon in 10 years - a reasonable expectation, with no new technology - would save about 2.5 millions barrels a day, which is just about what we import from the Middle East now.

    The same sort of broadly administered medicine is needed to clean up our power plants to combat global warming. Just saying "technology will do it" will not, in fact, do anything. The big utilities are simply not going to make the necessary investments unless a nationwide program of emissions targets compels them to do so.

    But Mr. Bush hates stuff like this, which means that it is now up to Congress to put something together. Right now there are several serious-minded proposals on Capitol Hill that would require, in one way or another, substantial reductions in oil consumption and generous production incentives for more-efficient cars and alternative fuels. This is the right direction, whether the administration wants to go there or not.

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    This 12-Step Program Can Break US Oil Addiction
    By Michael Brune
    The Capital Times

    Monday 06 February 2006

    Our president almost came clean in his State of the Union speech last week when he finally admitted that "America is addicted to oil." That addiction threatens our national security, our environmental health and our way of life.

    It is true that our leaders are exhibiting the classic signs of an addiction denial, aggression, avoidance, blaming others and as a country we are falling far short of reaching our full potential.

    America's stubborn dependence on oil erodes our bedrock values. For it, we will go to war, support unstable and undemocratic regimes, destabilize our climate, decimate our forests and parks, threaten the health of our children, and weaken our economy.

    The president admitted to a national problem, but stopped well short of committing our country to a full recovery program. We already have the technology. What we desperately need is the courage to act now. It is time for nothing short of a national intervention, and a 12-step program to break America's oil addiction. Here's how:

• Step 1: Let's admit that we have a problem, and commit deeply and truthfully to a national recovery program to break our oil addiction. Transitioning to a clean energy economy will create millions of jobs, clean our air, protect our water supplies, our forests and our climate, and will help to build a safer and more secure world for us all. But breaking our addiction requires humility and an unwavering commitment to change at every level of society. No one gets a free ride anymore.
  
  
• Step 2: Separate oil and state. Every year, oil companies "invest" millions of dollars in political candidates. In turn, elected officials dole out more than $20 billion a year to prop up fossil fuel projects internationally. We must reduce the oil industry's influence over public governance and eliminate government handouts for dirty oil.
  
  
• Steps 3-6: Jump-start Detroit and redesign American mobility. The transportation sector accounts for more than two-thirds of all oil consumption in the US Our passenger train system scrounges for funding in Washington while one out of every seven barrels of oil in the world is consumed on America's highways alone. Led by Ford Motor Co., the American automobile industry is driving in reverse. The average Ford vehicle gets worse gas mileage than the Model T did almost 100 years ago. Thomas Friedman is right the stability and very existence of the American automotive industry depends upon American automakers building affordable, fuel-efficient cars that all patriotic Americans can support. Pioneering engineers have already built plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and new companies are inventing super-efficient biofuels made from agricultural waste with no help from Detroit or Washington.
  
  
• Steps 7-8: Start a rooftop revolution and green the grid. California is enacting regulations to build one million homes with rooftop solar power, generating 3,000 megawatts of power. Studies show that solar energy supports up to 10 times more jobs than dirty fossil fuel energy. A green grid powered by the wind and the sun can recharge car batteries and help us kick our transportation oil habit.
  
  
• Steps 9-10: Wean to green and fund the future. Capital investment from the world's largest banks is the fuel in the engine, so to speak, of the oil-based economy. Through their investment decisions, large banks can either help to keep us hooked on oil, or rapidly steer us toward a clean energy future. Some banks, including Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs, are leading the way, proving that it is indeed possible to do well by doing good.
  
  
• Step 11: Adopt a "low-carb" energy diet. Any comprehensive strategy to break our oil addiction must include aggressive measures to reduce energy consumption. A low-carbon energy diet will reduce energy costs and increase competitiveness for American businesses, lower emissions, and produce clean jobs for workers. Efficiency improvements in the last 30 years have doubled the amount of work we get from each barrel of oil. According to the Rocky Mountain Institute, current proven technologies can double oil efficiency again, for less money than would be required to buy the oil we save.
  
  
• Step 12: Vote. Could it be any clearer that we need responsible and visionary leaders at all levels of government?

    Like a smoker who says he's going to quit someday even as he lights up another cigarette, the president offered little hope that he would actually break our country's oil addiction. It will take a lot more than a speech and a few research dollars to set us free from oil. Let's get to work.