FPIF: A Quick Fix: The Candidates and Energy Independence - by John Becket

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A Quick Fix: The Candidates and Energy Independence - by John Becket

To get the recent $700 billion bailout passed, some "sweeteners" were added to the package by the Senate to attract votes from certain constituencies. Among them were $18 billion in tax breaks for businesses and individuals who want to make their homes and businesses more energy efficient and/or invest in green technology. Lacking an overall strategy and insufficient funds for the job, the "sugar high" will have little lasting impact. So goes the quest for "energy independence" touted by Congress and the presidential candidates. While Congress steadfastly declines to increase taxes on an oil industry making record profits — taxes which could be used to develop alternative energy — Europe and other nations, including China, forge far ahead in weaning themselves from dependence on petroleum. While the government stumbles all over itself to hand hundreds of billions to reckless speculators, only grudgingly does it support alternative energy. And although Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is likely to be more supportive of alternative energy than Republican John McCain, neither party's platform includes the sort of aggressive plan that America really needs.

The U.S., meanwhile, has nothing like a Minister for Sustainable Development. What passes as energy policy in America is a piecemeal, stops-and-starts approach that is often ill-conceived and just as often more rhetoric than action. In late 2007, Congress called for the nation to pursue 25 percent renewable energy by 2025. But Dan Arvizu, director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Colorado-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory, told a Harvard University audience such a goal is laughable to Germany, where 25 percent is a business-as-usual mark. One hundred percent renewable by 2025, Arvizu said, is cited by the Germans as their "stretch goal." In fact, Arvizu said, U.S. public investment in renewable energy research has fallen 78 percent since 1978. To put things into proper perspective, the $150 billion total cost of alternative energy Obama's proposal is only about one-fifth of what Congress recently approved for the Wall Street bailout and one-quarter of this year's defense budget. What Obama is pledging to spend each year is slightly more than what the US is currently spending each month for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.