Energy, Energy, Energy

Its hard to overstate how important fixing the U.S. energy situation is. Even though gas prices have come down accompanying the economic slowdown, we’ve seen the volatility of gas prices the past few years — especially when there’s uneasiness in high-oil-producing areas. Think about the problems we’ve been having with Iran — and Israel’s massive air force demonstration just a couple of months ago. If the situation with Iran’s nuclear activity heats up, gas prices with skyrocket. That’s just one scenario.

Beyond just prices at the pump, however, is the cost to the U.S. each year in having to import so much of our energy, and how that affects our policy interests overseas. A lot of people are sick of the constant bad news eminating from the Middle East. How did we get involved there in the first place? Oil. Think where you get your energy from doesn’t matter? Ask Ukraine how easy it is to deal with Russia.

There’s also the environmental concerns. Now things might not be quite as bad as polar ice caps melting and sending western and eastern seaboards to the bottom of the sea, but its still pretty bad — and bad air quality has been linked to increased cases of asthma and other lung diseases, along with global warming and environmental damage.

On top of all this, newer, greener technology can lower the amount of money everyone has to spend on gas, clean up the environment, and create millions of new jobs. We’ve known this. We’ve known this for decades. Hell, Jimmy Carter told us this 30 years ago. The problem has never been not knowing what we need to do — its been the will to do it.

We’ve finally got a president who’s standing up and putting action behind all the talking. California and other states have put forth a plan to require all new cars to achieve at least 35 mpg overall in four years. Obama  has asked the EPA (which has the authority to approve these regulations, as the Supreme Court ruled last year), to take another look at California’s plan.

But, already, the whiners have come out about the new regs. They’re claiming that only a handful of cars are currently able to meet that standard — that its putting too much pressure on the auto industry.

Bullshit.

The auto industry has four years to come out with more cars that can meet that standard. There are already several cars that nearly meet it, as is, and only need more tweaking. On top of that, the auto industry needs a kick in the rear to become more competitive both domestically and internationally — let’s face it, the Big 3 are a joke in both arenas.

How about instead whining about it, get to work and come out with some better cars. The auto industry has kicked and screamed and litigated about regulations like this for decades — and for decades they’ve fallen farther and farther behind on car technology and competitiveness.

Its time to push forward with an energy policy that thinks long-term and is forward-thinking. This is one part of that, and I applaud Obama for supporting it.

~ by deluxetoaster on January 27, 2009.