An Energy Plan We Can Believe In

Energy is now the No. 1 issue in the 2008 elections, with both candidates touting new plans to deal with soaring energy prices. Meanwhile, Congress is at a standstill, arguing over the renewal of critical clean energy incentives and a push for more offshore drilling. But above the partisan cacophony is a proposal all Americans can get behind: a new national education initiative to meet the energy challenge.

The United States is in energy crisis. Oil and electricity prices are rapidly escalating, our dependence on imported energy is increasing, and global warming continues unabated, each presenting grave threats to our national interests and security. Solving these interlinking crises requires large strategic investments to spark a clean energy economy and develop cheap and nonpolluting energy for every American.

But let's pause for a moment to imagine what a clean energy economy would actually look like: tens of thousands of new highly skilled designers and manufacturers reassembling America's auto fleet and producing the next generation of wind turbines and solar panels. An army of new engineers and contractors rebuilding America's electrical grid, erecting wind farms and solar plants, and retrofitting our homes to save on energy costs. Lab researchers inventing cutting-edge, low-carbon energy technologies, which entrepreneurial startups and venture capitalists take into the marketplace.

Now contrast this with today's reality: nearly half of our current energy workforce is expected to retire over the next decade, our manufacturing and construction sectors are in steep decline, and American universities are graduating fewer students each year in the crucial fields of science, mathematics and engineering.

We cannot allow these trends to continue, if we are to confront today's energy crisis. It is imperative that we transform our nation's universities, colleges and vocational schools into multidisciplinary hubs of clean energy innovation that will develop solutions to revitalize our economy, end our dependence on imported oil, and address global warming as well as train a new workforce to develop and deploy low-carbon technology and infrastructure.

Fifty years ago, in the wake of the Soviets' launch of Sputnik, the federal government authorized the National Defense Education Act of 1958. The act provided billions of dollars to inspire and train a generation of Americans to confront the Soviet challenge to win the space race. It was a critical first step toward developing the human capital necessary to put a man on the moon and invent the technologies that catapulted our world into the Information Age.

Just as the National Defense Education Act launched America into the space race, overcoming the energy crisis will require new, large-scale public investments in our nation's schools.

Now is the time for a National Energy Education Act.