Mile by Mile, Into the Oil Trap By Fareed Zakaria

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/22/AR2005082201114.html?nav%3Dhcmodule&sub=AR
Mile by Mile, Into the Oil Trap

By Fareed Zakaria

Tuesday, August 23, 2005; Page A15

If I could change one thing about American foreign policy, what would it be? The answer is easy, but it's not something most of us think of as foreign policy. I would adopt a serious national program geared toward energy efficiency and independence. Reducing our dependence on oil would be the single greatest multiplier of American power in the world. I leave it to economists to sort out what expensive oil does to America's growth and inflation prospects. What is less often noticed is how crippling this situation is for American foreign policy. "Everything we're trying to do in the world is made much more difficult in the current environment of rising oil prices," says Michael Mandelbaum, author of "The Ideas That Conquered the World." Consider:

· Terror ism . Over the past three decades, Islamic extremism and violence have been funded from two countries, Saudi Arabia and Iran, not coincidentally the world's first- and second-largest oil exporters. Both countries are now awash in money, and no matter what the controls, some of this cash is surely getting to unsavory groups and individuals.

It's true that there is no silver bullet that will entirely solve America's energy problem, but there is one that goes a long way: more efficient cars. If American cars averaged 40 miles per gallon, we would soon reduce consumption by 2 million to 3 million barrels of oil a day. That could translate into a sustained price drop of more than $20 a barrel. And getting cars to be that efficient is easy. For the most powerful study that explains how, read "Winning the Oil Endgame" by energy expert Amory B. Lovins (or go to http://www./ http://oilendgame.com/ ). I would start by raising fuel efficiency standards, providing incentives for hybrids and making gasoline somewhat more expensive (yes, that means raising taxes). Of course, the energy bill recently passed by Congress does none of these things.

We don't need a Manhattan Project to find our way out of our current energy trap. The technologies already exist. But what we're searching for is perhaps even harder: political leadership and vision.
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1. during the campaign Kerry advocated 'creating" our way out of this

trap--putting our minds to work--creating the technologies etc etc--

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2. JImmy Carter tried to do this 30 years ago.

And the Democratic controlled Congress gave him nothing but shit about it.