- Provide similar credits for companies developing more cost-efficient technologies for extracting oil from coal - the U.S being, of course, the Saudi Arabia of coal.
- Lift what effectively has been a quarter-century moratorium on the construction of new nuclear plants for electric power generation; provide tax credits for companies building them, too. And finally. . .
- To ease us toward the hydrogen economy that surely is our future, develop the nation's own abundant untapped reserves of oil and natural gas.
To do that will mean doing it right while lifting some of the prohibitions the nation has imposed on itself to get the oil out of the ground. It will require going into areas declared off-limits. It will require short-term suspension of certain environmental restrictions in conjunction with advanced techniques for extracting oil in more environmentally compatible ways.
These are things we can and must do. Already the Bush administration, stymied in the Senate on its energy initiatives generally and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge specifically, has moved to open 9 million acres to exploration and drilling on the North Slope. But that is only a meager beginning.
Continued reliance on foreign oil threatens our national security and economic growth. (Ironically, rising demand for oil from a surging U.S. economy, combined with a China and India newly on the economic march, is a major factor in driving up the price of crude.) In one key but limited area, sky-high fuel prices have put practically all the major U.S. airlines on the brink of Chapter 11.
Time's up for the League of Waltzers With Caribou, among whom John Kerry is a principal member. Since 1991 he has voted consistently against precisely the sort of domestic petroleum development that has forced our increased dependence on the likes of our friends the Saudis.