The PBS NewsHour had an excellent segment last night on Bush's energy "plan." I put "plan" in quotes because that's exactly what it is NOT - a detailed, specific set of steps to take in order to break our oil "addiction," as Bush correctly called it. The two guests were Robert Lieber, professor of government and international affairs at Georgetown University, and Amy Myers Jaffe, a research fellow for energy studies at the Baker Institute at Rice University in Houston. Here are a few key excerpts, which I - an international oil market analyst myself - wholeheartedly endorse:Jaffe: "..the big question is, with the budget constraints, can we really do something significant?"
Lieber: " I think the president made an important point last night about the addiction to oil. The problem was it didn't go far enough. A lot needs to be done, especially the low-hanging fruit, which is gasoline consumption, mile-per-gallon standards for cars and the "t" word, gasoline taxes. We need to do it all."
Lieber: "...the immediate target has to be gasoline consumption, and that's where there are big opportunities to deal with auto mileage, but it requires stepping on a lot of toes politically, both in terms of federal regulation and in terms of taxes, and as yet, that hasn't been the case for either Democratic or Republican administrations or either party in Congress.
Jaffe: "...actually, we could reduce our full dependence on oil from Saudi Arabia by just closing the loophole and requiring light trucks and SUV's to get the same mileage standards as sedans."
Lieber: "...if you had a package, which includes both conservation and production, both taxes and improvements in mileage standards, bio-fuels and new energy sources, et cetera, you might be able to get something through."
Jaffe: "I really think that Americans need to get a grip. We need to act responsibly. We need to understand that if there are hurricanes again on the Gulf Coast, we're all going to pay the price for that, and we're all going to be disrupted in our personal habits, and therefore we have to pitch together."
Jaffe: "We really need an Apollo-sized program. What the president did last night is say, 'I have a great idea. Let's go to the Moon but, by the way, I'm only going to invest $50 million or $100 million to get there.'
He needs to find a way, whether it's through energy taxes or through higher taxes on industry, or whether it's through just having Americans give up their Bush tax cut in exchange for having a major program - we need to pitch together through great leadership to have a major program to change the future of how we use energy. "
So there you have it. Two top energy analysts endorse almost exactly with what Tom Friedman and many others, myself included, have been saying since 9/11. Namely, if we seriously want to get off of imported oil - which we should! - and if we seriously want to stop global warming - which we should! - then we need to get serious. And basic economics tells us the simplest, most "efficient" way of reducing consumption of anything is to raise the price of it. That's where taxes come in, and YES, they can be "revenue neutral" if you want, by lowering other taxes.
Or, God forbid, you could take that money and pour it into national health insurance, the country's transportation infrastructure (bullet trains, anyone?), etc. Aside from taxes, we need a huge, Apollo-sized, government-led program to "put a man on the moon" in terms of energy. We need research on cars that get 100 miles to the gallon. We need houses that produce more energy than they consume. And we need this fast. Which means this is not going to cost millions of dollars, or billions of dollars, but HUNDREDS of billions of dollars. In other words, goodbye Bush tax cuts, hello Windfall Profits tax on ExxonMobil, which just announced the largest corporate profits in human history. Hello massive science and technology education initiative. Hello a program that will reinvigorate U.S. industrial and technological leadership for the 21st century!
Meanwhile, since the federal government appears incapable of doing anything, we need to start at the STATE LEVEL by immediately enacting Renewable Portfolio Standards for renewable power, tax credits for people to buy the most energy efficient heat pumps and other major appliances, California standards for vehicles on carbon dioxide emissions, etc. As I have asked before here at Raising Kaine, what on earth are we waiting for? Tim Kaine mentioned energy in his State of the Union response the other night, now it's time for the Virginia General Assembly to send him legislation to DO SOMETHING about it. Once again, Virginia can be a national leader on this issue. Right, Now.
[UPDATE: Former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson (D-NM) said yesterday that Bush's energy "plan" was "virtually meaningless...Lofty goals but a weak plan of action." Richardson added that "The Bush administration has been asleep at the switch. We have gone from 54 percent dependence on foreign oil to 65 percent...The president needs to use the bully pulpit to lean on Americans to conserve energy and the oil companies to use their profits for energy diversification." Finally, Richardson noted that "Oil companies like Exxon have $37 billion in record profits yet their investment in renewable technology and increased refinery capacity and domestic drilling have been minuscule."]
[UPDATE #2: From the New York Times, check this out:
The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget.A veteran researcher said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol. Those are two of the technologies that Mr. Bush cited on Tuesday night as holding the promise to replace part of the nation's oil imports.
The budget for the laboratory, which is just west of Denver, was cut by nearly 15 percent, to $174 million from $202 million, requiring the layoff of about 40 staff members out of a total of 930, said a spokesman, George Douglas. The cut is for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1.]