Let's Invest in Clean Energy

How would I spend a hypothetical $10 billion? I can't help noting, at the outset, that it's not just a question of priorities. It's also a question of fiscal responsibility. After all, President Bush managed to turn a projected $5.6 trillion budget surplus into a projected $4 trillion deficit in less than eight years. So unless we're willing to make some tough fiscal choices, the money we're talking about will have to remain highly hypothetical.

But if I had the cash on hand, and had to choose from the list of worthy causes, I'd focus on one issue: energy.

A dramatic investment in clean energy would be the most effective check on aggressive petroregimes from Moscow to Tehran. It would be the best long-term solution to global warming. And energy independence is the most effective step we can take for American families staggering under the burden of high gas prices.

That's because the forces that have produced this summer's record prices are not going away. We are facing skyrocketing world demand for an ever-shrinking quantity of oil, and unless Congress figures out a way to amend the laws of supply and demand, that fundamental fact is not going to change. This is a large-scale problem, and it's going to take large-scale solutions.

One of those solutions is using America's resources for America. Right now, 311 million acres of public land are available for oil leasing. Of those, the oil companies are sitting idle on 68 million acres, including 33 million on the Outer Continental Shelf. Republicans seem incapable of acknowledging that those 68 million acres are already leased, yet completely undrilled. The public wants drilling on that land, and Democrats agree.

But ultimately, we are still consuming nearly a quarter of the world's oil while, according to the Oil and Gas Journal, we are sitting on just 1.6% of the total world supply. Even with more domestic production, there's only one lasting solution: find new sources of energy, and use the energy we already have more intelligently.

There, the difference between the two parties is stark. Republicans voted against more fuel efficient cars, against lower fares to boost public-transit ridership, and against renewable energy research. Democrats, on the other hand, raised the gas mileage standard for the first time in more than three decades, increased production of homegrown biofuels, supported efforts to develop the next generation of vehicles, and launched a comprehensive advanced energy research program.