Spring Break
REALITY CHECK: To our future President
by David Litvak
Columnists | 9/23/08
Posted online at 1:09 AM EST on 9/23/08
Jan. 21, 2009
Mr. President, last summer our nation faced a significant energy crisis, one of the steepest in years. In mid-July, gas prices peaked at an average of $4.11 per gallon nationally. Since the start of the war in Iraq, those prices represent an almost 2 1/2-fold increase per gallon for the American consumer-almost a full dollar from prices the previous year.
The problem, however, was never the price of gas. Nor was it foreign oil as opposed to oil produced domestically. The problem, then as it is now, was gasoline itself.
High gasoline prices were only ever symptomatic of a wider, more serious deficiency in our nation's energy policy, one that reaches as far back as the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. Our nation had a real opportunity to evolve beyond its dependency on fossil fuels then, and for a time, maybe we tried. But as prices fell during the 1980s and focus shifted away from energy costs, that evolution waned. A nation of innovators failed to innovate; a nation of immense creative vision failed to create the visionary technologies that it would so badly need a quarter-century later. America's potential to lead the world toward a future of clean energy was squandered on the altar of its addiction to oil.
Our oil addiction, conversely, has evolved-from a relatively serious energy and economic problem to an outright threat to America's energy and economic security. America imports about three fifths of the oil it consumes, a proportion that continues to increase with every passing year. This addiction has also begun affecting more than just the price of gas. Diesel fuel prices are rising, impacting the cost of transporting any goods by truck or rail, and thus the cost of everything we buy. Home heating oil prices are also up, and with each passing year more and more families are struggling to make it through the winter.
The longer we remain at the fickle mercy of foreign oil producers, the longer we allow basic tenets of both domestic and foreign policy-how we power the nation, how we interact with other nations on the world stage-to be dictated to us by the price listed at the local Chevron station. Your administration, Mr. President, must not waste time in crafting a policy that sets us on a road to true energy independence. The nation has suffered for eight years under a president blind to this growing crisis, one who was even party to its spread. We cannot afford to wait another eight to free ourselves of it.
Mr. President, last summer our nation faced a significant energy crisis, one of the steepest in years. In mid-July, gas prices peaked at an average of $4.11 per gallon nationally. Since the start of the war in Iraq, those prices represent an almost 2 1/2-fold increase per gallon for the American consumer-almost a full dollar from prices the previous year.
The problem, however, was never the price of gas. Nor was it foreign oil as opposed to oil produced domestically. The problem, then as it is now, was gasoline itself.
High gasoline prices were only ever symptomatic of a wider, more serious deficiency in our nation's energy policy, one that reaches as far back as the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. Our nation had a real opportunity to evolve beyond its dependency on fossil fuels then, and for a time, maybe we tried. But as prices fell during the 1980s and focus shifted away from energy costs, that evolution waned. A nation of innovators failed to innovate; a nation of immense creative vision failed to create the visionary technologies that it would so badly need a quarter-century later. America's potential to lead the world toward a future of clean energy was squandered on the altar of its addiction to oil.
Our oil addiction, conversely, has evolved-from a relatively serious energy and economic problem to an outright threat to America's energy and economic security. America imports about three fifths of the oil it consumes, a proportion that continues to increase with every passing year. This addiction has also begun affecting more than just the price of gas. Diesel fuel prices are rising, impacting the cost of transporting any goods by truck or rail, and thus the cost of everything we buy. Home heating oil prices are also up, and with each passing year more and more families are struggling to make it through the winter.
The longer we remain at the fickle mercy of foreign oil producers, the longer we allow basic tenets of both domestic and foreign policy-how we power the nation, how we interact with other nations on the world stage-to be dictated to us by the price listed at the local Chevron station. Your administration, Mr. President, must not waste time in crafting a policy that sets us on a road to true energy independence. The nation has suffered for eight years under a president blind to this growing crisis, one who was even party to its spread. We cannot afford to wait another eight to free ourselves of it.
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