Back to Work - Bill Clinton [64]
The primary controversy over natural gas concerns the most efficient technology for its extraction, called fracking. It’s alleged that the injections of a chemical solution into underground fissures to release and push the gas into more accessible and less costly recovery positions pollute water supplies and pose other health challenges. So far, studies in the areas where fracking has been most criticized don’t seem to support the claim, but there is some troubling anecdotal evidence. State and federal officials with environmental protection responsibilities could allay public concerns by requiring extra care and monitoring of fracking, keeping it from being done too close to aquifers or other sources of drinking water. I also think the gas companies should disclose to the EPA the chemicals used in fracking so that any risks can be properly evaluated. Apparently many companies do so already, though they were exempted from having to in the 2005 energy bill, which I think was a serious mistake.
Natural gas also has great potential as a transportation fuel, as T. Boone Pickens has been arguing for years. My foundation has worked with cities in Latin America to install cleaner buses that run on concentrated natural gas, which can also power heavier trucks better than currently available electric battery technology. Transportation is responsible for about 25 percent of America’s greenhouse-gas emissions, and oil imports comprise about half our trade deficit. The less we use gasoline to get around, the better off we’ll be.
With proper care, I think we can extract the gas. We need it, and it can both make us more energy independent and contribute to job creation and growth.
18. Keep developing more efficient biofuels. In 2005, the United States adopted a requirement that renewable fuel usage be at least 7.5 billion gallons in 2012 and increase at a rate equal to the growth of gasoline after that. To achieve that goal, Congress passed a subsidy for the production of fuel from corn. In recent years, more than a third of our corn crop has gone to fuel production. The subsidy has been heavily criticized in the United States and abroad because of rising corn prices, global food shortages, and the relative inefficiency of corn ethanol compared with other biofuels. During the budget negotiations, there was bipartisan agreement to end the subsidy quickly.
That’s good policy, though perhaps it would have been better to phase the subsidy out over three years. Regardless, it would be a mistake to abandon biofuels altogether. They help us to become more energy independent, and the fuel-processing plants create good jobs. The virtue of corn is that the cost of converting it into fuel is much less than that for other biofuel stocks, including switchgrass, rice hulls, and other biostocks widely available in the United States. The problem with corn is that it produces barely 2.5 gallons of biofuel for every gallon of oil required to make it, compared with 4 gallons or more for other biofuels and 9.3 gallons for fuel produced from sugarcane.
We should continue to promote biofuels, including biodiesel, by funding research to reduce conversion costs and providing tax incentives to help the ethanol plants switch to more efficient stocks when the corn subsidy dies. We should also consider changing the sugar subsidy to steer some of our own cane crop into biofuel. It might even help us with our obesity problem!
19. Keep the tax credits for producing and buying electric and hybrid vehicles, and increase the pace at which the federal automobile fleet is being converted. Our electric vehicle fleet is just getting off the ground, and it’s already spurred new manufacturing companies whose founders believe they can compete with the all-electric Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf, as well as the big-brand hybrids. My friend Terry McAuliffe went to China and bought one of their largest electric car companies and moved the entire operation to