Editor’s note: Over the next three weeks, the two major candidates for president or their representatives respond to a Denver Post request for their plans on tackling four major issues. Today, Sen. Barack Obama and former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens outline campaign platforms on energy and the environment. Next week: the economy.
When it comes to our economy, our security, and the very future of our planet, the choices we make in November and over the next few years will shape the next decade, if not the century.
Central to all of these major challenges is the question of what we will do about our addiction to foreign oil. From the gas prices that are wiping out paychecks and straining businesses; from the instability and terror bred in the Middle East to the rising oceans and record drought and spreading famine that could engulf our planet, it’s one of the most dangerous and urgent threats this nation has ever faced.
We’ve been having this debate for decades. Enough is enough. Now is the time for big, bold solutions to our energy crisis.
Unfortunately, John McCain doesn’t offer any. For 26 years, he’s been part of the Washington system that has done nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
He’s said “no” to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, “no” to investments in renewable energy, and “no” to renewable fuels. Today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day Sen. McCain took office.
His only answer is “drill, baby, drill.” Like George Bush and Dick Cheney before him, he sees more drilling as the answer to all of our energy problems.
But he knows that even if we opened up and drilled on every single square inch of our land and our shores, we would still only find 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves — in a country that uses 25 percent of the world’s oil.
In the short term, as we transition to renewable energy, we can and should increase our domestic production of oil and natural gas. But we should start by telling the big oil companies to drill on the 68 million acres they currently have access to but haven’t touched, not by offering them $4 billion in new tax cuts at a time when they’re making record profits, as John McCain has. That’s change — but it’s not the kind of change the American people are looking for.
That’s why, for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I have pledged that in 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.
My plan will produce enough renewable energy and reduce consumption through new, aggressive efficiency measures that we will replace all the oil we currently import from that region. In addition, the cap-and-trade program I’ve proposed will allow us to reduce our dangerous greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050 and slow the warming of our planet. In the process, we will create 5 million new green jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced. Most important, we can do a lot of it with resources and technology that are available today.
We’ll make long-term investments in affordable, clean energy by investing $150 billion over the next decade in alternative energy sources like wind, solar, and the next generation of biofuels. We’ll retool our domestic auto plants to build the advanced technology cars and trucks of the future here. We’ll invest in clean coal technology, require that 25 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2025, and set a goal of producing 2 billion gallons of next generation biofuels by 2013. And I will lead business, government, and the American people in pursuing aggressive energy efficiency measures.
So there is a choice in this election. We can keep sending billions of dollars to oil executives and dictators and watch helplessly as the price of gas rises and falls because of some foreign crisis we have no control over. We can watch other countries create the industries and the jobs that will fuel our future, and leave our children a planet that grows more dangerous and unlivable by the day.
Or we can choose another future. We can choose to face the realities of the 21st century by building a 21st century economy. We can watch cars that run on a plug-in battery come off our assembly lines and see shuttered factories open their doors to manufacturers that sell wind turbines and solar panels that power our homes and our businesses. We can lead the world, secure our nation, and meet our moral obligations to future generations.
For the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, we must end the age of oil in our time. This is the challenge we must meet. This is the opportunity we must seize — and this may be our last chance to seize it.
