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February 8, 2006

To Break America’s Oil Addiction, We Need the Right Prescription

Most doctors who treat addicts succeed by getting them to cut back on or even eliminate the substance they’re abusing. Otherwise, not only does the addiction not go away. Over time, it gets worse.

That’s why President Bush’s prescription for breaking what he calls America’s “addiction” to oil will do very little to reduce the amount of petroleum our country uses.  His Advanced Energy Initiative, announced during his State of the Union address last Tuesday, includes no measures to encourage Americans to consume less energy.

That fuel efficiency should be part of America’s “addiction treatment plan” cannot be denied. According to the Alliance to Save Energy, if not for energy efficiency and conservation measures taken since 1973, the occasion of the first oil embargo, the United States would be devouring 40 percent more energy each year. Federal programs like Energy Star, which sets higher fuel efficiency standards for household and office appliances, and the CAFE, or corporate average fuel economy, standards have made such savings possible.

Still, the amount of energy, and oil, we consume as a nation continues to rise, and will do so unless we make a renewed national effort to conserve -- something the President failed to mention in his 51-minute speech. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, more than half the oil now used to produce the gasoline we put in our gas tanks is imported, a factor that increases our national security risk substantially. Oil imports also significantly undermine our economy. The Union of Concerned Scientists calculates that U.S. consumers currently send over $200,000 overseas every minute to buy oil.

Two-thirds of the 20 million barrels of oil the U.S. consumes each day is used for transportation. That’s where some of the most immediate savings are available. By keeping our tires properly inflated we can immediately save 4 million gallons of gasoline every day. We can see fuel efficiency improve by as much as 14% by using cruise control on the highway. Keeping our car engines tuned up garners us another 4.1% fuel efficiency gain. Increasing incentives for car pooling, mass transit, and telecommuting should also be part of any “kick the addiction” package the President puts forth.

Pres. Bush did call for additional research into ethanol, a grain based alcohol that can be used to displace some gasoline in engines that have been adapted to use the “E-85” mixture. But of greater use would be to provide incentives for more gas stations to install ethanol gas tanks. Currently thousands of vehicles are capable of running on E-85 fuel, but only 500 gas stations are equipped to dispense it, and those are mostly in the Midwest.

The President set a goal of achieving greater energy independence by 2025, but there’s no need to wait almost twenty years to take advantage of opportunities that exist today. After all, what doctor would tell his addict patient to wait two decades for a cure?

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