Progressive Energy Policies Serve Our National Interest

Progressive Energy Policies Serve Our National Interest

August 22, 2005

As Americans struggle with $3 a gallon gasoline in some parts of the country, and many others facing sharp increases in heating fuel for the winter months, it is time for our leaders to come to grips with the hard truth: our nation must end its excessive reliance on oil. In order to protect our economy and ensure our way of life, we must take far-reaching efforts to diversify our energy production with renewable sources; reduce our reliance on unstable and uncertain foreign oil; and transform our consumption patterns into more sustainable and efficient ways of using energy. Unfortunately, right-wing leaders have taken the exact opposite approach favoring tax handouts to huge oil companies and virtually ignoring consumption needs and alternative energy sources.

• We should help Americans move into more affordable, fuel efficient vehicles. Increasing fuel economy standards should be the top priority but we should go beyond production standards. Low-income drivers tend to own less efficient vehicles that are also often the least reliable, the least safe and the most polluting cars on the road. Programs designed to get the most polluting cars off the roads have already been used successfully in a few states. Just as the government helps low-income households meet their home energy needs through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, progressives should adopt a policy that helps low-income drivers scrap their inefficient vehicles and replace them with efficient cars.
  
  
• We should encourage industries to embrace innovation and increase their bottom lines by producing the next generation of cleaner, more efficient cars and trucks. Innovation in the automobile sector will help maintain a domestic manufacturing base and provide good jobs for the future in the automobile sector and beyond. Tax credits to convert auto plants to produce more efficient vehicles are one alternative. Another is to create an x-prize style program to promote cars of the future whereby the government would offer a cash prize for the first company that develops and sells one million vehicles that achieve efficiency of at least 80 miles per gallon. A smaller prize would go to the second place finisher. An additional reward for the winners could be a guaranteed federal procurement for the federal fleet and low-income leasing program, if that program was adopted. We should also encourage the development of alternative fuels like bio-diesel and shift agricultural subsidies to support these changes.
  
  
• We should make energy independence a national budgetary priority. The federal budget still contains tax incentives that actually increase oil consumption. These should be eliminated and funds redirected, starting with the $25,000 tax credit for the heaviest SUVs. This would save the Treasury almost $250 million annually and help cover the costs of other programs to help reduce oil consumption. In addition to saving the federal Treasury money by increasing the fuel efficiency of the government fleet, they could increase access to affordable, reliable transportation, which in turn would expand job opportunities for many workers and spur economic development.