The president’s reaffirmation of his commitment to action on local weather change, action by his Govt Power if Congress won’t act, was unequivocal. That is thrilling. However it’s also clear that no road map has been developed for the kind of progress that is required — not by the White House, not by the Democrats in Congress, and, I would argue, not by the climate movement. (Sure, various climate advocates have referred to as for the total vary of steps wanted — but there isn’t any obvious abstract agenda which has taken the place of pricing carbon — the option which, at any meaningful degree, is at the moment off the desk and which the president didn’t embrace.)

There are undoubtedly steps which were flagged. Recognizing that the Keystone XL Pipeline is a boondoggle designed to increase oil prices in the Midwest, use the U.S. because the sacrifice zone for the risks of refining tar sands bitumen, and lock the world into unaffordable $ninety dirty transportation gas ought to be — however is not — a no brainer.

Obama needs to maneuver ahead with regulating not just new, however existing, coal power plants under the Clear Air Act. The president known as for doubling vitality effectivity, and the use of revenues from federal oil and gas drilling to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. He referred to as for a “repair it first” method to our infrastructure deficits, lots of whose parts, like broad band wireless entry, would additionally assist lower waste of fossil fuels and the resultant carbon pollution.

If all this happens, and states hold on to their commitment to renewable electricity standards, the U.S. utility sector might be on its strategy to a low-carbon future. However although the newly promulgated effectivity standards for vehicles and trucks will finally reduce U.S. oil consumption by 2.5 million barrels a day, that leaves almost 90 p.c of our dependence on oil untouched.

Getting beyond oil is the following large problem going through the American economic system. Forgot the glitzy guarantees of “Saudi America.” Even the most bullish projections of elevated oil production from tight formations like the Bakken present the cost of imported oil remaining at $300 billion a 12 months indefinitely.

It’s not how much oil we import — it’s what number of dollars we export that is crippling our economy.

What the president didn’t provide — and what we need — is an formidable nationwide goal, not simply reducing our oil dependence. Let’s finish it. Let’s break the oil trade’s monopoly. Let’s substitute at the least one other 7 million barrels of transportation power with efficiency and different non-petroleum sources. That might make the U.S. free from dependence on imported oil — market forces won’t do it.

Such a objective might additionally unlock an financial and sustainability revolution. It is excess demand which drove the price of oil from $30 solely a decade ago to $one hundred right now. Simply chopping world consumption of oil by 7 mbd over the next 5 years would deliver that worth again right down to an inexpensive $60/barrel.

The world cannot afford — and need not tolerate — gas costs of $four gallon. Oil customers pay this extortionate fee solely as a result of oil has a monopoly.

Ending our dependence on imported oil would have the identical economic advantages as a everlasting stimulus package deal of $300 billion a yr — with out adding a penny to the deficit. Oil imports quantity to a tax paid to foreign governments like Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia. (That is ¾ the dimensions of our fiscal deficit challenge, for the file.)

This profit outcomes not just from importing less oil, but from decreasing the worth of the remaining oil we use. That’s a factor not commonly taken into consideration in calculating the benefits of investments that exchange oil with renewable fuels, car performance and transportation effectivity shifts like highway to rail.

What occurs environmentally if we get the worth of oil back to $60? Effectively, the investors within the Keystone Pipeline would thank President Obama for refusing to permit it, as a result of at $60/barrel there isn’t a economic market for new tar sands oil. Nor would Shell keep fighting for the precise to deliver its badly damaged, unArctic worthy drilling rigs again to the Chuckchi Sea. Excessive oil – more than half of the danger oil poses to the local weather – is a threat solely when the price of oil remains at or close to $90/barrel or greater.

So setting a nationwide objective of oil independence, and assembly it by investing in an All-American, sustainable transportation system, are the largest steps the president — or the Congress — may take to maneuver forward on local weather — and to jumpstart our financial system. Implementing that goal would drive the event of low-carbon transportation alternatives. After we’ve ended the menace of excessive, expensive oil, by reducing international demand by 7 mbd, the U.S.

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