Presidential politics and the price of energy
WITH THE economy tanking on the eve of Super Tuesday, what should the presidential candidates candidly be saying about the cost of transforming the energy sector of our economy while still achieving overall economic growth? Over the last 30 years, urgency about energy has been cyclical, sparked by crises abroad and our nation's addiction to oil.
In 2007, something fundamentally changed. In large part thanks to former vice president Al Gore, America collectively "greened." Now, the wolf is at the door since the United States can no longer pay the price of deferring or delaying energy transformation - we must reduce our increasing energy consumption and wean ourselves from fossil fuels.
A review of energy policy over the last 25 years reveals a set of lost opportunities and a lack of political will. Yes, we broke the link between energy consumption and economic growth in the industrial sector. But even with energy price volatility, the United States consumed more energy and did not develop green buildings (buildings account for 40 percent of the economy's total energy demand). Nor did we clamor for hybrids (transportation makes up 28 percent of our energy consumption) or invest in smart utility technology so that consumers could receive price signals to monitor and adjust energy use.
Yes, we attempted retail electricity deregulation, with success still elusive for a variety of complex reasons, and, yes, we moved to ethanol, which itself creates a myriad of other environmental problems. But the power of the energy lobby remained strong. Factor in another costly problem, failing infrastructure - in many of our cities, our natural gas pipes and electric lines are aging - and the country will be faced with an even larger energy bill.
The next president will face hard realities: We need to have a better mix of fossil fuels, nuclear power, and renewables, such as solar and wind power; government and the private sector need to devise a workable framework where incentives bolster technology more than they do today; and we must recognize our energy interdependence. Billions of people in the developing world will become greater energy consumers, and their demand will increase the price we pay for energy.
On the Democratic side, there is a commitment to addressing climate change, embracing new technologies, and implementing energy efficiency, but little focus on how to pay for these changes. Hillary Clinton gets to the granular level of energy policy while Barack Obama considers climate change to be a moral challenge.
On the Republican side, John McCain does not want his leadership on this issue to be considered a sign of weakness, as a capitulation to global forces. Mitt Romney, the only candidate who walked away from signing on to an actual plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions regionally, is putting his Olympian faith in a "Manhattan Project" of new energy technology, which means a new bureaucracy and overhead costs before any benefits are realized.
Candidates need to be extremely straightforward in saying that implementing long-term goals will cost consumers today and tomorrow. They need to squarely indicate that delay or failure in implementing changes will have a long-term impact on the US competitive position.
While an April 2007 ABC News/ Washington Post/Stanford University poll shows that 94 percent of those surveyed indicated that they were willing to make lifestyle changes, only 45 percent were willing to tolerate any personal sacrifices. In other words, obvious policy options - drastic increases in energy prices to alter the trend toward ever more consumption, mandated restrictions in the use of energy or acceleration in the substitution of renewables - are either politically unpalatable or impossible to achieve in the short term.
Whoever emerges after Election Day cannot put energy and the environment on the back burner. Delay and deferral are two options that the economy can no longer sustain. Most important, there needs to be transparency in decision and policy making, where all interests receive equal consideration.
Decisions can never again be made in backrooms where resources are squandered in court cases rather than spent in problem solving. The term "energy independence" needs to be banished from a candidate's lexicon, replaced by "energy interdependence" in the global economy. Rather than ignoring this issue as we did for the past 30 years, we need a laser focus of intellectual and financial capital for the next 10. The candidate who gets this message will demonstrate his or her leadership potential to the next generation.
Barbara Kates-Garnick is a former commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities and a former 
