One of my biggest frustrations with Democratic leaders is their refusal to embrace the energy policy Al Gore outlined this summer, which could "end our reliance on carbon-based fuels" in the next decade.
Barack Obama has offered an energy policy that's a big improvement on what George Bush has done. Unfortunately, Obama still supports more investment in so-called "clean coal" and has not ruled out expanding nuclear power.
On the plus side, Obama also calls for generating 10 percent of our country's electricity from renewable sources by 2012--which sounds great until you learn that the U.S. has already surpassed that goal.
We have a long way to go in the policy debate on global warming. This is from a press release by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), Chair of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming:
... Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) sent a letter to the president yesterday asking him to live up to his campaign promise from 2000 to "jawbone OPEC" into producing more oil on his Saudi Arabia visit. Since President Bush took office, OPEC's production has stayed relatively flat, even as global demand has skyrocketed.
... "It appears that when it comes to getting the Saudi's to turn on the spigot and produce more oil, the president's political 'jawbone' is broken.
"While Americans are getting pummeled at the pump, the president apparently is unable to even squeeze another drop of oil from the Saudi sheiks.
... "The president has delayed taking action on gas prices for too long, perhaps hoping his Saudi friends would bail him out. That course of inaction has now failed, and now the President must wield the power he had all along to aggressively use our nation's oil reserves to help Americans at the pump."
Why the certainty that the Saudis even havemore to pump?
Also, we don't actually own Saudi Arabia and I don't see the benefit of talking as if we had ought to; that sort of mindset is exactly what's gotten us into this ridiculous, tragic mess in Iraq. This isn't our world to do with always and everywhere just as we please, making all others bow before us.
Shouldn't the Chair of the Select Committee be using the advent of the current, glaring price signal to push for sustainable alternatives and better research and development budgets? Why isn't he complaining about the shortsightedness of previous energy policies, the ones that left us unprepared to deal with market shocks through the availability of alternative choices?
It disappoints me that we're getting this sort of badly framed grandstanding from the committee that represents the very best of our congressional wisdom on climate change. We can't keep doing what we've always done, and we definitely shouldn't be looking to make it cheaper.
If we want real help for consumers trying to get from point A to point B, bring on the public transportation funding.
