A National Energy Policy Is Essential Now More Than Ever
An Open Letter to the Presidential Candidates
By James A. Croce
CEO NextEnergy
Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain: I hope you read this.
With gasoline prices shooting up past $4 a gallon and the economy of our nation reacting to this energy cost disruption with unpredictable surges in the price of food and nearly all other goods and services, it’s apparent to me, and to many others, that our nation now needs a formal and far-reaching national energy policy. Such a policy could guide our nation securely through the approaching decades of wildly fluctuating energy costs that are most assuredly headed our way.
Our national energy usage can no longer be a passive game of profit and politics. This is a war now. This is a war to protect our national economy from energy prices that are largely beyond our control. We certainly do not control the price of foreign oil.
Relying upon state’ leadership to fight this battle as individual governing bodies is as futile as asking individual states to declare war on Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan during World War II. Can you imagine California and Oregon independently battling Japan? Or Ohio waging war on Germany?
It is an absurd metaphor, but designed to make a point. Energy is a national issue. We, as a nation, are at war with high energy prices that are likely to go much, much higher than they are now … and we need a comprehensive, long-term, and non-politicized national policy to protect our population and to hold us together in this time of encroaching crisis.
We need the vision of a Lincoln or a FDR to slice through the Gordian knots of turf wars and state selfishness and pull our whole nation together to meet the energy challenges we are now beginning to face. Senator McCain and Senator Obama; we need your leadership on this issue.
We need a National Energy Policy that maximizes domestic resources fairly and economically throughout the USA. We need long range policy thinking that will outlast single party presidential administrations. We need federal strength that will not shy away from doing what is right and just in the face of threatening or intimidating business interests.
We need uniform national automotive emissions standards and national renewable portfolio standards; not “here and there, now and then” standards that pit states against each other. We need to upgrade the alternative fuels mandate to include all clean domestic fuel sources. We need to revamp the electrical transmission regulatory structure to create “electron liquidity” between and among the vast number of electric utilities, independent power producers, and their customers. And we need a firm “floor” on oil prices so that gasoline cannot be manipulated back down to $2 a gallon again, thus undoing all the progress now being made with reducing the cost of alternative fuels, and throwing our nation into yet another oil crisis. It’s impossible to keep our economy stable with yo-yoing oil prices. We’ve been jerked around enough on that roller coaster and the chaos has to stop.
American needs a comprehensive and VERY long-term National Energy Policy, Mr. President-to-be. We need the best minds in the country to come together and deliver not just a road map, but a Constitution of National Energy Policy that will be no less permanent than the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence.
Our national energy policy is every bit as crucial to our national survival as any world war could be. We should treat this challenge with the same deference. And with the same fear.
NextEnergy paid for placement of this article. Its views do not necessarily reflect those of WWJ Newsradio 950 or CBS Radio.
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With gasoline prices shooting up past $4 a gallon and the economy of our nation reacting to this energy cost disruption with unpredictable surges in the price of food and nearly all other goods and services, it’s apparent to me, and to many others, that our nation now needs a formal and far-reaching national energy policy. Such a policy could guide our nation securely through the approaching decades of wildly fluctuating energy costs that are most assuredly headed our way.
