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By Root 1419 0

investment we need to make America more competitive is in an energy infrastructure that can move us toward energy independence. In the past, war or a direct threat to national security has shaken America out of its complacency and led to bigger investments in education and science, all with an eye toward minimizing our vulnerabilities. That’s what happened at the height of the Cold War, when the launching of the satellite Sputnik led to fears that the Soviets were slipping ahead of us technologically. In response, President Eisenhower doubled federal aid to education and provided an entire generation of scientists and engineers the training they needed to lead revolutionary advances. That same year, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, was formed, providing billions of dollars to basic research that would eventually help create the Internet, bar codes, and computer-aided design. And in 1961, President Kennedy would launch the Apollo space program, further inspiring young people across the country to enter the New Frontier of science.

Our current situation demands that we take the same approach with energy. It’s hard to overstate the degree to which our addiction to oil undermines our future. According to the National Commission on Energy Policy, without any changes to our energy policy U.S. demand for oil will jump 40 percent over the next twenty years. Over the same period, worldwide demand is expected to jump at least 30 percent, as rapidly developing countries like China and India expand industrial capacity and add 140 million cars to their roads.

Our dependence on oil doesn’t just affect our economy. It undermines our national security. A large portion of the $800 million we spend on foreign oil every day goes to some of the world’s most volatile regimes—Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and, indirectly at least, Iran. It doesn’t matter whether they are despotic regimes with nuclear intentions or havens for madrassas that plant the seeds of terror in young minds—they get our money because we need their oil.

What’s worse, the potential for supply disruption is severe. In the Persian Gulf, Al Qaeda has been attempting attacks on poorly defended oil refineries for years; a successful attack on just one of the Saudis’ major oil complexes could send the U.S. economy into a tailspin. Osama bin Laden himself advises his followers to “focus your operations on [oil], especially in Iraq and the Gulf area, since this will cause them to die off.”

And then there are the environmental consequences of our fossil fuel–based economy. Just about every scientist outside the White House believes climate change is real, is serious, and is accelerated by the continued release of carbon dioxide. If the prospect of melting ice caps, rising sea levels, changing weather patterns, more frequent hurricanes, more violent tornadoes, endless dust storms, decaying forests, dying coral reefs, and increases in respiratory illness and insect-borne diseases—if all that doesn’t constitute a serious threat, I don’t know what does.

So far, the Bush Administration’s energy policy has been focused on subsidies to big oil companies and expanded drilling—coupled with token investments in the development of alternative fuels. This approach might make economic sense if America harbored plentiful and untapped oil supplies that could meet its needs (and if oil companies weren’t experiencing record profits). But such supplies don’t exist. The United States has 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves. We use 25 percent of the world’s oil. We can’t drill our way out of the problem.

What we can do is create renewable, cleaner energy sources for the twenty-first century. Instead of subsidizing the oil industry, we should end every single tax break the industry currently receives and demand that 1 percent of the revenues from oil companies with over $1 billion in quarterly profits go toward financing alternative energy research and the necessary infrastructure. Not only would such a project pay huge economic, foreign policy, and environmental dividends