Foreign Policy: The Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2008

This is a MUST READ. Be sure to check out #6: "Greenhouse Gas Comes from Solar Panels."

What you don't know can hurt you.

Technorati tags: Foreign Policy, top ten, stories, missed, solar panels, solar energy

Who is the More Green Candidate? Compare.

Know the facts before you vote. Compare the Candidates Policy Proposals:

Click on the Chart for Larger View.

For more information see: See at a glance where the presidential candidates stand on climate and energy issues | Grist

Technorati tags: Energy, Climate, Climate Change, Green, Energy Policy, Global Warming, Environment, Energy Policy, Barack Obama, John McCain, 2008, Election, Presidential

Obama McCain and the "Worst Case Scenario"

The Real News Network interviews Cass Sunnstein:

Sunnstein: The climate change crisis, not terrorism, is the real "worst case scenario"

Bio

Cass R. Sunstein (born 1954) is an American preeminent legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics. Sunstein taught at the University of Chicago Law School for 27 years, where he continues to teach as the Harry Kalven Visiting Professor. Sunstein is currently the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

And Then There Was One

Thomas L. Friedman, NY Times, writes:

"As we emerge from Labor Day, college students are gathering back on campuses not only to start the fall semester, but also, in some cases, to vote for the first time in a presidential election. There is no bigger issue on campuses these days than environment/energy. Going into this election, I thought that — for the first time — we would have a choice between two “green” candidates. That view is no longer operative — and college students (and everyone else) need to understand that...."

Photo Credit: Thomas Friedman. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Also See:

• Friedman: A Vote for Obama

Technorati tags: Thomas Friedman, New York Times, Energy, Environment, 2008 Election, Barack Obama, John McCain, Green, op ed

Republicans Have Handed Democrats a Winning Election Issue

AlterNet:

But so far, Democrats have been refusing to accept the gift....

Technorati tags: Alternet, David Morris, Environment, Energy, Politics, Republicans, Democrats, 2008 Election, Barack Obama, John McCain

A different kind of hybrid or flex-fuel

Left I on the News reports:

In the U.S., "hybrid" car is pretty much synonymous with the Toyota Prius and similar cars which can run on electricity or gasoline; "flex-fuel" is synonymous with cars that can run on either gasoline or what used to be called (I haven't seen the term in quite a while) "gasohol." But there's a different kind of hybrid car I'd never heard of, and one of the world leaders in its production is...Iran:

Iranian companies have increased production of dual-fuel vehicles as part of the general plan to manufacture less gasoline-powered cars.

“Iranian automakers have produced more than 120,000 vehicles that use natural gas and regular gasoline in the first quarter of the current (Iranian calendar) year (March 20-July 21),” Iranian Minister of Industries and Mines Ali-Akbar Mehrabian said on Sunday in Tehran.

“Hybrid car production rose to 429,000 last year from 20,000 two years ago,” Mehrabian said at Iran's first national conference on CNG, which was held in the capital from August 2 to 3.

For comparison, there are only 150,000 natural gas vehicles in the entire U.S., a country with more than four times the population of Iran.

Hopefully the Administration and corporate media won't learn about this; I'm sure they'll figure out the nefarious motive behind it and call for additional sanctions.

Update: By the way, ever the stickler for the precise use of language, I note that the first sentence in the quoted article should read "fewer gasoline-powered cars," not "less."

Technorati tags: Energy Policy, Environment, Iran, Hybrid, Flex-fuel, Automobiles

Al Gore: A Generational Challenge to Repower America

Courtesy of "We Can Solve It"



For complete transcript, click here.

Technorati tags: Environment, Global Warming, Energy Policy, Al Gore, Speech

The REAL McCain: Big Oil Fuels the Straight Talk Express

Watch the video from Brave New Films:

Gas prices are hitting all-time highs. Our country is in the midst of a recession thanks in part to our crippling dependence on oil, so what's John McCain's plan? Will he hold the corporate leaders of the energy industry accountable when he addresses them today in Houston? Probably not, considering they are some of his biggest fund-raisers.

The Center for Responsive Politics finds that McCain has accepted over $1 million from the oil and gas industry. Many of McCain's top advisers have lobbied for big oil, which is why he now acts in their best interests, opposing environmental legislation and alternative energy plans. And that's exactly why we want everyone to know The REAL McCain.

McCain is desperate to distance himself from President Bush. But according to the Center for American Progress Action Fund, McCain has received millions in donations from the same oil, coal, nuclear, chemical, utility, and auto companies that helped the Bush administration create its energy plan�a plan that has raised gasoline to $4 a gallon.

Here's what you can do: Send this e-mail to ten of your friends, family members, and colleagues. Tell them to send it on to ten people they know. And don't forget to Digg it! Spread the word that McCain is taking major contributions from wealthy oil executives like Bob Mosbacher, just one of the special interest leaders he'll be addressing in Houston.

Make sure everyone gets to know The REAL McCain, subscribe to Brave New Films today.

Technorati tags: Energy Policy, Presidential Election, 2008, John McCain, Oil, Corporations, Energy Industry, Campaign Contributions, Global Warming

Gas Tax Gotcha

Hillary Clinton continues her dishonest campaign to say anything that might benefit her politically--no matter what the truth happens to be. The current debate over her and John McCain's proposed federal gas tax holiday is a case in point:

washingtonpost.com:

"...We have to agree with Sen. Barack Obama, the only candidate who has refused to play this game. 'It's not an idea to get you through the summer,' he said. 'It's an idea to get them through an election.' His opponents no doubt hope that Mr. Obama's stand will prove to be political suicide. We think it qualifies as political courage."

Also See:

• Gas Tax Holiday Is A Bad Idea | The Progress Report:

  SUMMARY: Rising gas prices are hitting Americans hard, while oil companies rake in record profits . As the economy falters, calls to deal with the price of gasoline have reached the halls of Washington, D.C. "[L]awmakers are considering ideas they might have nixed months ago, including temporarily lifting the federal gas tax and halting deposits of oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve." Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) have called for a summer moratorium on the federal gas tax. McCain has not specified how to make up the $11 billion; Clinton has proposed a tax on windfall profits from oil companies to recoup losses to the federal highway fund. Economic analysts of all stripes have responded with horror, pointing out that " the benefits will flow to oil companies, not consumers." Even if a suspension of the gas tax led to lower prices, the rich would benefit the most, since "the more a family earns, the more they drive," notes Sam Davis of the Center for American Progress. Len Burman of the non partisan Urban Institute calls the proposal "a huge windfall for refiners." New York Times columnist Tom Friedman argues, " This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks." Newsweek's Jonathan Alter agrees, stating, "Suspending the federal gas tax is a crass ploy for votes." The Atlantic Monthly's James Fallows calls cutting the gas tax "destructive nuttiness" and "embarrassing."  Economist Gilbert Metcalf called it "very short-sighted," noting, "If we want people to invest in energy-saving cars, we need some assurance that the higher price paid for these cars is going to pay off through fuel savings."

• Dumb as We Wanna Be | New York Times | Thomas L. Friedman:

  "The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today: “Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.”
  
  Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering."

Technorati tags: Gas tax, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Pandering, Politics, Washington Post

US Truckers Stage Nation-Wide Shutdown

The Real News:

Truckers' protest urges Congress to stop subsidizing oil industry and build new refineries

Wednesday April 30th, 2008

A convoy of trucks rolled through Washington, DC, on Monday, as part of a protest to pressure Congress into acting on high gas prices. As gas around the US hit an average of $3.66 per gallon--a full 66 cents above the price this time last year--truckers called on the US government to take action.

For more information, see: The Unknown Candidate: Force Congress to Impeach Bush/Cheney: Step One

Technorati tags: Truckers Union, Protest, Strike, Energy Policy, Iraq War, Impeachment

How Green is Your Candidate?

Grist has done the research and provided valuable information about where the presidential candidates fall on the Green scale.

Interviews and information on the presidential candidates' energy plans and environmental positions are provided. You can also compare the candidate's green positions in this chart allowing you to quickly contrast where the presidential contenders stand on climate and energy issues.

Finally, you can watch video of "some of the candidates speaking at the first-ever presidential candidate forum focused on climate change and energy policy, cosponsored by Grist."

"Grist also teamed up with Outside to interview presidential contenders about green issues. [They've] published Q&As with all of the Democrats and a number of the Republicans. [They've] also compiled fact sheets on the candidates, with their current platforms, voting records, video, audio, and more" to be updated "as the campaigns unfold."

Illustration: Grist.org

Technorati tags: 2008 Presidential Election, Presidential Candidates, Green, Global Warming, Energy Policies, Environment

Not Ready for Mainstream News

Turn off your TV. Watch the video. Get mad. Do something about it.



"Misunderstanding arising from ignorance breeds fear, and fear remains the greatest enemy of peace." -- Lester B. Pearson

• Kissinger’s Secret Meeting With Putin | By Mike Whitney:

  "When a political heavyweight, like Henry Kissinger, jets-off on a secret mission to Moscow; it usually shows up in the news. Not this time...."

• Lies, More Lies, And Damn Lies | By Eric Margolis:

  "As the White House now ponders an attack on Iran, we would do well to recall the famed words of King Pyrrhus of Epirus, `one more such victory and we are ruined.' ..."

• Ship of fools: Johann Hari sets sail with America's swashbuckling neocons | The Independent:

  "The Iraq war has been an amazing success, global warming is just a myth – and as for Guantanamo Bay, it's practically a holiday camp... The annual cruise organised by the 'National Review', mouthpiece of right-wing America, is a parallel universe populated by straight-talking, gun-toting, God-fearing Republicans...."

• U.S. intelligence advisors see failure in fight with Al Qaeda in Pakistan | International Herald Tribune:

  "President George W. Bush's top counterterrorism advisers acknowledged Tuesday that the strategy for fighting Osama bin Laden's leadership of Al Qaeda in Pakistan had failed, as the White House released a grim new intelligence assessment that has forced the administration to consider more aggressive measures inside Pakistan...."

• The State | Pakistan criticizes U.S. terror warning:

  "A U.S. intelligence report that al-Qaida is regrouping in northwest Pakistan is unsubstantiated, Pakistan said Wednesday, and it asked Washington to provide it with 'actionable intelligence.'"

• Peter Galbraith | The War Is Lost:

  Former ambassador Peter Galbraith, vividly lays out the dismal state of Iraq and the various catastrophes likely to flow from most of the major "benchmarks" established by the Bush administration and Congress, if they were ever to become reality.

• Iran: 2nd Round of Talks With U.S. Soon | Guardian Unlimited:

  "Iran's foreign minister said Wednesday that his government had accepted a U.S. request for ambassador-level talks on Iraq, to be held 'in the near future.'..."

• Guardian Unlimited: Bush's new faith-based strategy:

  "Has God sent a reminder to the amnesiac president of the United States? How else to account for George Bush's sudden and belated announcement of an international peace conference on the Middle East? It was back in 2003 that the US President reported an even earlier divine directive as told to the Palestinian leaders Abu Mazen and Nabil Shaath:
  
  I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq ...'. And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East'. And by God I'm gonna do it.
  
  Presumably Jehovah, operating on an eternal time scale, thought that half a decade or so of indolence on the Israel/Palestine file would not make a difference...."

• YouTube |Your Cell Phone: FBI can listen even when phone is turned off


• 911Truth.org | US Social Forum Supports Call for Independent, International Investigation into 9/11

  "Thanks to donations from some of our generous supporters, 911truth.org was present at the first ever United States Social Forum, along with 15 other 9/11 truth activists from six states. We attended with the idea we'd have to convince people to look at the need for a real investigation, but what we learned was that most everyone was already aware of some important 9/11 questions and agreed with us! Even better, we introduced a Resolution demanding an "independent, international investigation of 9/11" which received resounding applause by thousands in attendance at the final Peoples Assembly!..."

• Bush Middle East plan starts to unravel | The Guardian:

  "George Bush yesterday encountered the weakest of welcomes for his call for an international peace conference on the Middle East.A day after he unveiled his plan for a conference of Israelis, Palestinians and Arab governments in the autumn, there were few signs of optimism that such a gathering could produce a final resolution to the conflict...."

• AlterNet: If This Is Such a Rich Country, Why Are We Getting Squeezed?:

  Heather Boushey and Joshua Holland report for AlterNet on the contradictory stories of the American economy, where the stock market continues to boom, but at the same time Americans are told their government is unable to pay for a "robust social net.

• Robert Scheer | King George W.:� James Madison's Nightmare:

  "George W. Bush is the imperial president that James Madison and other founders of this great republic warned us about.� He lied the nation into precisely the %u201Cforeign entanglements%u201D that George Washington feared would destroy the experiment in representative government, and he has championed a spurious notion of security over individual liberty, thus eschewing the alarms of Thomas Jefferson as to the deprivation of the inalienable rights of free citizens.� But most important, he has used the sledgehammer of war to obliterate the separation of powers that James Madison enshrined in the U.S. Constitution."

• Administration Drug Officials Appeared With GOP Candidates:

  "White House officials arranged for top officials at the Office of National Drug Control Policy to help as many as 18 vulnerable Republican congressmen by making appearances and sometimes announcing new federal grants in the lawmakers' districts in the months leading up to the November 2006 elections, a Democratic lawmaker said yesterday...."

• AlterNet: Bush Government to Poor Voters: We Don't Want You to Vote

  "The Justice Department is pressuring 10 states to purge their voter rolls, while states are ignoring laws to help low-income Americans register to vote...."

• Energy firms' role in policy? | Washington Post:

  "After a six-year battle the record of who Cheney created our nation's energy policy with is published, and it isn't a pretty picture....."

Technorati tags: news, Bush, Cheney, Russia, Iraq, FBI, GOP, Energy Policy, Impeachment, 9/11, Vote Fraud, Israel, Iran, Pakistan

Energy Dud

The Capitol Energy Crisis
By Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times

When you watch a baby being born, after a difficult pregnancy, it is so painful and bloody for the mother it is always hard to tell the truth and say, “Gosh, that baby is really ugly.” But that’s how I feel about the energy legislation passed (and not passed) by the Senate last week.

The whole Senate energy effort only reinforced my feelings that we’re in a green bubble — a festival of hot air by the news media, corporate America and presidential candidates about green this and green that, but, when it comes to actually doing something hard to bring about a green revolution at scale — and if you don’t have scale on this you have nothing — we wimp out. Climate change is not a hoax. The hoax is that we are really doing something about it.

No question, it’s great news that the Democrat-led Senate finally stood up to the automakers, and to the Michigan senators, and said, “No more — no more assisted suicide of the U.S. auto industry by the U.S. Congress. We’re passing the first bill since 1975 that mandates an increase in fuel economy.” If the Senate bill, which now has to go through the House, becomes law, automakers will have to boost the average mileage of new cars and light trucks to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, compared with about 25 miles per gallon today.

But before you celebrate, pay attention to some fine print in the Senate bill. If the Transportation Department determines that the fuel economy goal for any given year is not “cost-effective” — that is, too expensive for the car companies to meet — it can ease the standard. That loophole has to be tightened by the House, which takes up this legislation next week.

But even this new mileage standard is not exactly world leading. The European Union is today where we want to be in 2020, around 35 miles per gallon, and it is committed to going well over 40 m.p.g. by 2012. Ditto Japan.

There are other things that make the Senate energy effort ugly. Senate Republicans killed a proposed national renewable electricity mandate that would have required utilities to produce 15 percent of their power from wind, solar, biomass and other clean-energy sources by 2020. Twenty-three states already have such mandates. No matter. Making it national was too much for the Republicans.

And the Senate, thanks again to the Republicans, also squashed a Democratic proposal to boost taxes on oil and gas companies that would have raised some $32 billion for alternative fuel projects.

Despite all the new research on climate change, the Senate didn’t even touch the idea of either a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax to limit carbon dioxide emissions. An effort by Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota to legislate a national reporting (“carbon counter”) system to simply measure all sources of greenhouse gas emissions, which would enable a cap-and-trade system to work if we ever passed one, also got killed by Republicans. We can’t cap and trade something we can’t measure.

Here is the truth: the core of our energy crisis is in Washington. We have all the technology we need right now to make huge inroads in becoming more energy efficient and energy independent, with drastically lower emissions. We have all the capital we need as well. But because of the unique nature of the energy and climate-change issues — which require incentives and regulations to build alternatives to dirty, but cheap, fossil fuels — you need public policy to connect the energy and capital the right way. That is what has been missing.

“We have to work to ensure that the House will at least toughen the provisions that the Senate passed,” said Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club’s Global Warming Program.

The public wants it. But energy policy gets shaped in the halls of Congress — where wily lobbyists, legacy industries and politicians greedy for campaign contributions regularly sell out the country’s interests for their own. Only when the public really rises up — as it has finally done against the auto companies — do we even get moderate change. Don’t look to the Bush team to lead the revolution.

“We are the only major country in the world where no one even knows the name of the environment minister — the head of our Environmental Protection Agency,” said Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat. “Whoever it is — and most people don’t even know if it is a he or a she — has been in a six-year witness protection program. Until the Democrats took over, no Bush E.P.A. administrator appeared before the House committee in charge of energy and climate change.”

Folks, we’re home alone. So call your House member — especially the Republicans. If you don’t, some lobbyist will.

Photo Credit: Thomas Friedman. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Thomas Friedman, New York Times, Global Warming, Politics, U.S. Government, Congress, Energy Policy, news, commentary, op ed

Friedman's Green Folly

Friedman gets it half right in today's Times op ed: Politicians continue to play "energy politics" instead of crafting meaningful energy policy.

But despite the fact that certain of "America’s corporate icons — G.M., G.E., A.I.G., DuPont, PepsiCo — 'have all come out in favor of a national mandatory limit on carbon emissions,'" the problem will never be solved until we demand public financing of our elections. Politicians beholden to corporate campaign donations will never get serious about solving the environmental problem or any other problem as long as they fear biting the hand that feeds them.

Further, Friedman's assertion that the only way to solve the energy crisis is to slap a slew of taxes on gasoline guaranteeing that its price will remain at unaffordable levels to millions of Americans whose budgets are already stretched to the limit is shortsighted, elitist, and dead wrong.

That kind of thinking makes as much sense as the Energy bigwigs rational for gas price gouging: if we don't keep our prices high, despite our obscene profits, and despite the fact that we have not invested in refineries in years and they are not operating at peak performance -- people will continue to demand gas which we won't be able to provide because we are pocketing those obscene profits instead of investing them in refineries to meet that demand.

The government can fashion a green policy that uses tax incentives instead of the present policy of free handouts to oil companies. They can offer all kinds of pro-green tax incentives as well as many of Friedman's suggestions. But to believe that any of this will happen on the scale it needs to happen without cutting the umbilical cord between politicians and corporations is, as Tom-Tom says, "only contributing to global warming by adding hot air."

It's not our "energy prices" that we have to get right, Tommy, it's our democracy.

Our Green Bubble
By Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times

Surely the most glaring contrast in American political life today is the amount of words, speeches and magazine covers devoted to the necessity of “going green,” “combating climate change” and gaining “energy security,” and the actual solutions being offered by our leaders to do any of these things. You could very comfortably drive a Hummer through the gap between our words and deeds.

We are playing pretend — which, when you think about it, is really troubling. Here are the facts: Our worst enemies, like Iran, have been emboldened by all their petrodollars. The vast majority of scientists tell us that global warming caused by our burning of fossil fuels is a real danger. And with three billion new consumers from India, Russia and China joining the world economy, it is inevitable that manufacturing clean, green power systems, appliances, homes and cars will be the next great global industry. It has to be, or we will not survive as a species.

And yet ... and yet our president and our Congress still won’t give us an energy bill that would create the legal and economic framework to address these issues at the speed and scale required.

If you were President Bush, wouldn’t you want to leave behind something big, bold and important on energy, just in case — you know, just in case — Iraq doesn’t turn out so well?

I sure would. But the president still has not challenged Congress or the country to undertake a radical departure on energy. So we still have only “energy politics,” not “energy policy.” Like previous energy bills, the packages working through the House and Senate today represent more “the sum of all lobbies,” as the energy expert Gal Luft, co-chairman of the Set America Free Coalition, puts it, not the sum of our best ideas.

Some lawmakers are pushing corn ethanol from Iowa, either because they hail from that area and are looking to give more welfare to farmers by wasting money on an alternative fuel that will never reach the scale of what is needed, or because they plan to run in the Iowa caucuses. Others are pushing huge subsidies to turn coal into gasoline, because they come from coal states. Those who don’t come from Michigan want higher mileage standards imposed on Detroit, while those who come from Michigan prefer to continue their assisted suicide of the U.S. auto industry by blocking tougher mileage requirements.

“The only green that they are serious about in Congress right now is the one with Ben Franklin’s picture on it,” Mr. Luft said.

Yes, it is helpful that Mr. Bush expressed a desire last week to work with other nations to limit greenhouse gases. His bully pulpit matters. But no one will — or should — take him seriously unless his government first leads by example. What would that look like? It has to start with a clear, long-term price signal. That is, a carbon tax or gasoline tax — or a cap and trade system with a binding national ceiling on carbon dioxide emissions — which would set a price for dumping carbon into the atmosphere or driving a gas-guzzling car.

Get Washington to signal that gasoline is never going to retreat from a level of $3.50 or $4 a gallon — and that wind and solar subsidies will be there for a decade, not stop and start as they always have before; get Washington to commit to buying a fixed volume of solar and wind power for government buildings and Army bases for 10 years, with only U.S.-based manufacturers able to compete for contracts; get Washington to set a new fleet average of 35 miles per gallon for Detroit within 10 years — with no loopholes; establish government loan guarantees for any company that wants to build a nuclear power plant; and, finally, build a national transmission grid — a green power superhighway — so that solar energy from Arizona or wind from Wyoming can power homes in Chicago. Do all that and our private sector will take America from green laggard to green leader.

Unfortunately, Congress is brewing instead a hodgepodge of incrementalism. This is particularly disappointing when America’s corporate icons — G.M., G.E., A.I.G., DuPont, PepsiCo — “have all come out in favor of a national mandatory limit on carbon emissions,” notes Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense. “But Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have not risen to their challenge.”

We have a multigenerational problem that requires a systemic, multigenerational response, and that can happen only if we get our energy prices right. Only that will guarantee green innovation and commercialization at scale. Anything less is wasted breath and wasted money — and any candidate who says otherwise is only contributing to global warming by adding hot air.

Photo Credit: Thomas Friedman. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Thomas Friedman, New York Times, Global Warming, Politics, Congress, Energy Policy, news, commentary, op ed

Only Halfway There

By Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times

I’m glad Democrats are keeping the pressure on President Bush for a withdrawal date from Iraq. It’s the only way to keep him and Iraqis focused on the endgame. But if Democrats really want to be taken seriously on foreign affairs, they need to recognize that they have only half a policy on Iraq. And it’s the easy half.

You can’t be in favor of setting a date to withdraw from Iraq without also being in favor of a serious energy policy to radically reduce our dependence on oil — now. To call for withdrawing from Iraq by a set date, no matter what the situation is on the ground there — without a serious energy plan here — is reckless. All we would be doing is making ourselves more dependent on an even more unstable Middle East, because any U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is likely, in the short run, to be destabilizing.

The Middle East today is deeply troubled. If we determine that our efforts to tilt that region in a different direction — by building a decent Iraq — have failed, then our efforts to minimize our exposure to that region have to begin. But the last thing we can afford to do is walk away from the Middle East militarily while remaining chained to it economically.

More important, if Iraq totally fails, but we still believe it is in our interest to promote reform in the Middle East, a serious U.S. energy policy that permanently brings down the price of oil — by developing scalable alternative energies — is actually the best Plan B there is. You will see reform in the Arab-Muslim world only when regimes there can’t survive just by extracting oil, but have to extract the talents of their people by educating, empowering and connecting them.

But to hasten that day, Democrats have to be a lot more serious about energy than they have been up to now. Everyone has an energy plan for 2020. But we need one for 2007 that will start to have an impact by 2008 — and there is only one way to do that: get the price of oil right. Either tax gasoline by another 50 cents to $1 a gallon at the pump, or set a $50 floor price per barrel of oil sold in America. Once energy entrepreneurs know they will never again be undercut by cheap oil, you’ll see an explosion of innovation in alternatives.

“Right now we’re looking for solutions in all the wrong places,” argues the noted oil economist Philip Verleger. “The only way one can effectively address this problem today and get an immediate kick is by raising the price at the pump and keeping it there.” Some of the revenue could be used to buy back the most fuel-inefficient vehicles on our roads, he added. “The best monument to 9/11 we could erect would be a mountain of crushed gas guzzlers.”

There are some hopeful signs: Chris Dodd has just broken ranks and become the first presidential candidate to issue a serious, comprehensive energy plan that includes the “T word.” He has called for a “corporate carbon tax” that would both help fight global warming emissions and raise gasoline prices.

“You say the word ‘tax’ and people usually head for the hills,” Mr. Dodd told me. “But this is one where the American people can handle the truth. Unless you address the issue of price, you’re not serious about moving us from Point A to Point B.”

Barack Obama also just got right in Detroit’s face. He went to Motown, called for much tougher fuel economy standards and bluntly told automakers and autoworkers the truth: “For years, while foreign competitors were investing in more fuel-efficient technology for their vehicles, American automakers were spending their time investing in bigger, faster cars. Whenever an attempt was made to raise our fuel efficiency standards, the auto companies would lobby furiously against it, spending millions to prevent the very reform that could’ve saved their industry.” Those are fightin’ words!

Finally, in a move that also merits praise, General Motors announced that it was joining other major U.S. corporations, like General Electric, and signing on to the United States Climate Action Partnership (U.S.C.A.P.), which calls for a cap-and-trade program to control carbon dioxide emissions. G.M. is the first auto company to do so.

None of these go far enough, but they are all new positions and may be harbingers of a new competition in which companies and candidates try to outdo each other in being serious about energy rather than phony. That would be a big deal — and it might give the Democrats a more comprehensive Iraq policy just in the nick of time.

You can’t be serious about getting out of Iraq if you’re not serious about getting off oil.

Photo Credit: Thomas Friedman. (Fred R. Conrad. (The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Thomas Friedman, New York Times, International Relations, Oil, Middle East, Energy Policy, news, commentary, op ed

Friedman: Iraq Rehash #3

Tom Tom rehashes, for at least the third time, his 'Two-F'r Iraq Solution': Let's exit Iraq and solve our energy problems-- all at the same time!

His arbitrary date of exit, Dec. 1st, is just that -- arbitrary -- and he gives no credible reason why it shouldn't be tomorrow.

What is most disturbing is Tommy's tendency to put all of the blame for the chaos in Iraq on the Iraqis -- and none on the US.

Forget about the fact that we intentionally upset a hornet's nest by invading their country and then proceeded to spread hornet venom all over the place by our unfailing failure to plan for just about everything.

The undercurrent of Tommy's remarks are inappropriately vindictive. Doesn't fly, Tom. You supported this fiasco from the beginning and only bailed when things were clearly going south. You have no one to blame for the sectarian violence and killing but your ideological hawk-friends in the White House and you and all the other neo-con zealots who supported their insane policy.

Yes, We Can Find the Exit
By Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times

MOSCOW

Listening, from Moscow, to the debate in Congress about Iraq is troubling: it sounds as if the American people are being offered two routes to a dead end: either follow President Bush and have troops surging into a roiling civil war, or go with one of the Congressional resolutions and denounce the surge, but without any alternative strategy for securing U.S. interests.

I believe there is an alternative strategy, but it will take two concrete numbers to implement: a date — Dec. 1 — and a price — $3.50 cents a gallon. Let me explain.

What is the U.S. interest in Iraq right now? It’s to quell the civil war enough so the parties may eventually reach a negotiated settlement, and if that proves impossible, to get America out of Iraq with the least damage to our interests.

We will not quell this civil war with a surge of troops alone. The only thing that will do that is a power-sharing, oil-revenue-sharing deal between the parties. The only way we will get serious negotiations going is with leverage that America does not now have: leverage on the parties inside and outside Iraq. Negotiating in the Middle East without leverage is futile. These folks know how to calculate the balance of power down to the last ounce.

So how do we get leverage? The first way to do that is by setting a firm date to leave — Dec. 1. All U.S. military forces are either going to be home for Christmas 2007 or redeployed along the borders of Iraq, away from the civil war.

Right now everyone in Iraq is having their cake and eating it — at our expense. We have to change that.

The Sunnis, who started this whole murderous cycle, participate in the government, negotiate with us and also indulge the suicide bombers and the insurgents. The Shiites collaborate with us, run their own retaliatory death squads and dabble with Iran. The Saudis tell us we can’t leave, but their mosques and charities funnel Sunni suicide bombers to Iraq and dollars to insurgents. Iran pushes its Iraqi Shiite allies to grab more power, while helping others kill U.S. troops. Ditto Syria.

O.K., boys, party’s over: we’re leaving by Dec. 1. From now on, everyone pays retail for their politics. We will no longer play host to a war where we’re everyone’s protector and target. If you Sunnis want to go on resisting, we’ll leave you to the tender mercies of the Shiites, who vastly outnumber you. You Shiites, if you want to run Iraq without compromising with Sunnis, fine, but you’ll have to fight them alone and then risk having to live under the thumb of Iran.

You Saudis and other Arabs, if you don’t use your influence to delegitimize Sunni suicide bombers and press Iraq’s Sunnis to cut a deal, we won’t protect you from the consequences. And Iran, you win — yes, if we leave, you win the right to try to manage Iraq’s Shiites. Have a nice day.

But at the same time, we have to impose a tax that creates a floor price of $3.50 a gallon for gasoline — forever. This is also about leverage. It says to all the parties: we are going to conserve enough gasoline and spur enough clean alternatives to fossil fuels that no matter what you all do in the Middle East, we will not depend on you for energy.

Today in Iraq, none of the key parties have to make any choices, and we don’t have any choices. That is the definition of “stuck.” Right now we can win only if all the parties in and around Iraq act in the most farsighted and flexible manner. Otherwise we lose in our attempt to democratize Iraq, and we’re left holding the bag. We need to be in a win-win situation that we control.

“I don’t think at this stage that the promise of 20,000 more troops will change any minds in Iraq,” said Michael Mandelbaum, author of “The Case for Goliath.” “But the threat of a lot fewer U.S. troops might conceivably get everyone focused. Right now, the U.S. is the passenger in a car that other countries are driving — and it’s not going in the right direction. We have to change that dynamic.”

Indeed we do. Once we’ve set a date to leave by and a gas price to live by, we, for the first time, will have choices in Iraq. We can stay to broker a deal if the parties want to be guided by their better angels or, if they want tribal instincts to reign, we can leave by Dec. 1 and insulate ourselves from Islam’s civil war with a new energy policy.

To put it another way, if setting a date to leave miraculously brings them to their senses, our aspirations for the Iraqis will have been achieved, and we’ll be stronger. And if it doesn’t, but we have set an exit date and a gas price, we’ll be out of Iraq and more energy-secure — and we’ll also be stronger.

Photo Credit: Thomas Friedman. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Technorati tags: Thomas Friedman, New York Times, Oil, Prices, International Relations, Foreign Policy, Iraq, news, commentary, op ed

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