Can you imagine a world in which the United States needs no foreign oil -- no oil from Middle East dictators, not even any oil from Hugo Chavez's Venezuela?
How different could our foreign policy be? How many troops would we need to protect us against terrorism if we did not feel the need to meddle in Middle Eastern politics?
Those were some of the possibilities that Barack Obama opened up for some 1,700 people who were lucky enough to get tickets to see him at the Lansing Center on Monday (August 4, 2008).
"We must end the Age of Oil in our time," Obama said, as he delivered a message that was tailor-made for job-hungry Michigan and for our auto industry -- a plan to spend $15 billion a year for the next 10 years to wean Americans completely away from foreign oil and create 5 million jobs based on alternative energies. And, he said, he wanted to see 1 million plug-in, fuel-efficient cars built in the U.S. Michigan's history of technological innovation would allow many of those jobs to be created right here, he said.
Obama acknowledged that the switch to alternative fuels will be expensive and difficult, but no more so than answering John Kennedy's call to put an American on the moon or Franklin Roosevelt's call to ramp up industrial production at the start of World War II. He said he knew the nation could do it because "we are Americans. We always do the improbable," he said.
Obama delivered his message in front of at least one Big 3 executive -- Bill Ford -- who undoubtedly appreciated Obama's promise for financial support for helping Michigan automakers retool to turn out cars that will run on alternative fuels.
In response to recent $4 a gallon gasoline, Obama laid out both a short-term and a long-term plan.
In the short run, Obama called for:
--$1,000 energy rebates to ease the pain of high fuel costs.
--A windfall profits tax on excessive oil profits.
--Selling some oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to bring down prices.
--Allowing a limited amount of additional oil exploration, including possibly off-shore, if that is necessary to obtain support for alternative fuel measures.
Recently, a bipartisan coalition of members of Congress released an energy plan that includes alternative fuel measures, along with some off-shore drilling. Obama said the measure is not perfect, but he said the nation cannot wait for perfection.
He also chided John McCain for his whole-hearted support for off-shore drilling, which was quickly followed by more than $1 million in contributions to his campaign by oil and natural gas executives, noting that oil companies have oil leases on 68 million acres of American land that they never have used and that off-shore drilling will not provide any relief for seven years. "If they don't use it, they should lose it," he said.
But Obama said he did agree with McCain's recent statement that our nation's dependence on foreign oil has been growing for 30 years. And, Obama noted, McCain has been in Washington for 26 of those years.
Obama also agreed with Texas oil man T. Boone Pickens, who said recently, "This is one emergency we cannot drill our way out of."
In addition to the short-term plan, Obama called for long-term measures, including:
--Increasing mileage standards by 4 percent a year.
--Extending the $7,000 tax redits for buying alternative fuel vehicles.
--$4 billion in loans and credits to automakers so they can retool their plants to build plug-in hybrids. "Automakers are not going to have to beg and plead to get the attention of the White House because they are going to have a partner in the White House," Obama promised.
--Requiring that 10 percent of American energy come from reneweable sources within four years.
--Extending production tax credits for five years for wind powre and solar power.
--Tax incentives and government contracts to encourage the next generation of biofuels.
--Safer ways to use nuclear power, including finding a solution to storage of nuclear waste.
--Modernizing the nation's utility grid.
--Reducing electrical usage by 15 percent by the end of the next dcade, including making new buildings 50 percent more efficient and basing utility profits on conservation not energy usage.
Overall, this was a different Obama speech from the ones seen on television during the primary. This was not about soaring rhetoric or hope or America's promise. It was a nuts-and-bolts policy speech, filled with plenty of specifics for all those cynics who claim Obama is short on substance. There was plenty of substance -- the kind that allows people to dare to hope.
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