Two state of the union messages

Listening to President Bush's State of the Union message last night, I actually heard two very different -- and contradictory -- messages.

President Bush said we need to make the tax cuts permanent. But he also said we need to fully fund the war. The president said that our country is "engaged in the defining ideological struggle of the 21st century." Yet he has not called upon citizens -- other than men and women in the military -- to sacrifice for this war. Instead, the president has in the past urged Americans to do "more shopping."President Bush said that we need to defend our "vital interests" in the Persian Gulf, but he failed to mention the words "oil" or"petroleum."

These contradictions are the opposite of leadership. It's a sad state of affairs when our president can't directly say what we all know is true: our economy depends critically on petroleum, and access to petroleum is a vital national security interest of the United States. According to the Iraq Study Group report, Iraq has the world's second largest known oil reserves. The bottom line is that currently we depend on oil to run our economy, and, if we don't take action, we will need to import ever-increasing amounts.

I've put forward a plan for ending our dependence on oil -- and funding a New Energy Economy. The National Security Levy on oil (see http://www.buckey08.com/) would be a fee on every barrel of oil consumed in the US -- combined with a price floor guaranteeing that oil would not sink below a certain price. The National Security Levy would be phased in slowly so that consumers wouldn't face a sudden price shock. Part of the revenues from the levy would be rebated to working families to help compensate for increased energy costs. The rest would help finance an Apollo-style program for energy to make the US a world leader in alternative energy development and production.

We need to get away from the contradictions of the Bush era -- and acknowledge that securing our future will have a price. Getting off of petroleum will be hard and will take money. But imagine if we spent the billions of dollars we would have spent overseas on oil here in the US. In the long term, getting off of petroleum is the wisest investment we can make. This plan provides the resources to get going. We can either pay some now and do this on our own terms or pay a tremendous amount later and do it on someone else's terms.

Our national security requires that we act now.

The 5th anniversary and the way forward

Today, five years after the Senate passed the Iraq War Resolution, men and women in our military are still fighting and dying in Iraq. If we want to move forward, we must face difficult strategic questions, not just discuss dates and numbers of brigades. If you're talking about Iraq and you're not talking about energy, then you're not really talking about Iraq.
I didn't support the Iraq War Resolution in 2002, but now that we are involved in the war, there's no easy way out. Our military and diplomatic options in the Persian Gulf are severely hindered by our dependence on oil.

The debate about how to end the war should be about more than troop numbers or timetables for withdrawal. Successfully drawing down our troops in Iraq must be accompanied by drawing down our oil consumption and committing ourselves to developing technology for safe, renewable energy sources.

The global economy, the environment, and our national security all depend on America rising to the challenge of creating a new energy economy. As an astronaut, I know what this nation can do when we commit ourselves to a program. If we had an Apollo Program for energy, we could regain control over our future, stimulate our economy, and inspire the world.