AM850.com

I am old enough to remember when President Jimmy Carter declared that one of his top priorities was to make the United States independent of foreign oil imports during his administration. That was 1977, when about ten percent of our oil came from outside the United States. Carter and his successors were so successful in pursuing this policy of oil independence that now about 65 percent of our oil comes from foreign countries. I’ll repeat, 65 percent.

So Carter was a failure when it came to our energy policy. But he was not alone. Nixon promised that gasoline would never cost the American public more than $1 a gallon. Now George Bush and Governor Crist want to drill off our coasts to make up a tiny percentage of our oil deficit. Our leaders fiddle while the country burns foreign oil. We have placed our national fate in the hands of unstable, undemocratic third-world countries, and when Iran or Nigeria catches a cold, we get pneumonia.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that there are only two ways we can begin to dig ourselves out of this horrible oil nightmare. In the short run, we can conserve, and, in the long run we can develop alternatives to oil. It was heartening that Senator John McCain this week declared himself in favor of incentives to hasten conversion to energy-efficient vehicles. This included up to a $5,000 credit for anyone buying a car that emits little or no carbon dioxide, a $300 million prize for the development of a truly revolutionary battery for electric cars and a radical revamping of the so-called CAFÉ standards that established miles per gallon levels for automakers. As everyone knows, there were so many loopholes and low expectations for the car companies that the CAFÉ standards might just as well not have existed.

But there is one thing that McCain or no one else has said – that we are going to treat this oil situation as a genuine crisis in this country. That would mean reducing highway speeds to at most 60 miles per hour and cutting the national budget in some areas so we can pay for both meaningful fuel-saving incentives and the establishment of a Manhattan project to solve the oil problem. In the State of Florida we have just cut out arts and music in the public schools and significant parts of the infrastructure of our universities because the state is running out of money. How about the U.S. taking a look at some of our current expenditures -- the war in Iraq, space trips to Mars and farm subsidies, just as three examples -- to find the bucks to deliver us from OPEC?

In other words, take a look at our real priorities and provide a lot of leadership to address those priorities. What about hearing absolute promises on these issues this fall from every Presidential candidate and every person running for the Senate or the House of Representatives? Is that too unrealistic when we have a real, tragic crisis on our hands that affects every American?

This is Radio Ralph with a comment at midweek for AM850.