Leading the drive to end dependence on oil

Freedom from Oil: How the Next President Can End The United States' Oil Addiction
by David Sandalow
McGraw-Hill, $26.95

MEMO TO MY FELLOW AMERICANS, FROM YOUR PRESIDENT: We're still hooked on oil more than three decades after the first supply shocks caused long lines at the pump and the only real cure can be found in alternative fuels.

That's the premise of author David Sandalow in his new book, "Freedom from Oil: How the Next President Can End The United States' Oil Addiction" (McGraw-Hill, $26.95).

Energy challenges are dire, as Sandalow notes. The United States still relies on oil for 96 percent of its transportation fuels and the daily oil fix is growing - averaging almost 21 million barrels of crude a day, a fourth of global demand.

The book begins with a memo from the next president (Sandalow doesn't divulge who he's got his money on for 2008) to top advisers, asking for input for a televised speech that will spell out how the country will end its reliance on oil within a generation.

Sandalow is familiar with the memo method of policymaking. He served as an assistant secretary of state and with the National Security Council under President Clinton.

What follows are more memos, each one making a short chapter, in which presidential advisers offer solutions. The energy secretary, for example, says the problem lies not in America's reliance on foreign oil imports. "The fundamental problem is that we have no substitutes. Only when we set a goal of providing all drivers with a choice of fuels will we have a chance of ending dependence on oil."

That's close to what the Bush administration's current energy secretary, Sam Bodman, told a high school chemistry class in Alexandria, Va., last week. "We need to figure out ways to replace oil," he said.

Sandalow said in a phone interview that the title of his book does not mean the United States will be able drop oil as an energy source altogether.

"We're (no longer) addicted when new car buyers can choose between electricity, biofuels and petroleum," he said.

As experts and environmentalists have said for years, cutting gasoline consumption, about 45 percent of US oil demand, will have the biggest impact. Presidential leadership is needed to get this done, Sandalow says.

His book concludes with the president's pitch to the nation: "Oil has a proper place in our lives and economy. It is not evil. But our dependence on it makes us weak."

A radical step would give automakers that produce vehicles with oil-saving technology federal aid toward the healthcare costs of retired workers, which can add more than $1,500 to the sticker price of a car.

Some other proposals aren't new: tax credits to develop biofuels, having government agencies buy vehicles that run on alternative fuels, and boosting economy standards for cars and trucks.

To encourage purchases of fuel-efficient vehicles, the federal gasoline tax would increase by 10 cents a gallon annually for five years.

Families making less than $75,000 would get some of the money back in a rebate check that would arrive around the July Fourth holiday, presumably just in time for the traditional summer driving season - in a car that uses less gasoline or another fuel altogether.