I simply don't see us moving away from fossil fuels any time soon--and I don't see it happening at all without there being some inducement to cut demand (i.e. a tax). We DO need to move away from fossil fuels--as a national security imperative. We cannot continue to be held hostage by a cartel of petrocrats, many of whom are using the profits from our use of oil to fund terror support efforts.
So there, I've said it. We need to raise taxes on fossil fuels. No "cap and trade" bullshit. A plain old tax hike. Offset it somewhere else in the tax code--either in income taxes or through payroll taxes (as Charles Krauthammer has offered). The "free market" isn't going to solve this one, much as I wish it would.
UPDATE: Some additional info on how that free market's working for us, Mudge.
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why do you say that? when gas went up to $4.00/gal, because supply went down, hybrid car sales soared. people started looking more seriously at alternative energy and then gas supply went up and prices went down. the market absolutely will drive it. Just not as quickly as you would like, perhaps, but then some might say that is too soon anyway. I mean, why cripple our economic engine with self-imposed fuel price increases (that eliminate jobs rather than create them) while the rest of the planet uses the most efficient, readily available and relatively safe means of fueling their own economic engines. You've been breathing too much Maryland air. Get to Virginia quick and cleanse your political lungs my friend.
Mudge--because then the price went down again, folks walked away from hybrid cars, and upped their consumption.
This cyclical market driven response provides little or no "market" incentive to think long term.
Respond to the national security implications, please.
No more cap and trade bulls--t
Dude, whatever happened to "keep it clean"?
"Respond to the national security implications please."
I did: "why cripple our economic engine with self-imposed fuel price increases (that eliminate jobs rather than create them) while the rest of the planet uses the most efficient, readily available and relatively safe means of fueling their own economic engines?"
Strong economy IS national security.
Et tu, Mudge? Even you have come to see economy and security as the same? Shame on you. They are related, they are not the same.
We could have a wonderfully humming economy--and still face a dreadful national security dilemma on energy--that of folks supplying it to us who have bad things in mind for us.
Limit that leverage over the US, and we will have achieved an even higher level of security.
35 years ago Scoop Jackson complained that we import 35% of our oil, he considered that a national security issue. Today it's 70%. Oil in this context is a national security issue.
A strong economy and national security may not be the same but they're Siamese twins. You recall the line from The Right Stuff, "No bucks, no Buck Rogers". A weak economy directly effects our capabilities and a strong vibrant economy depends on cheap, reliable energy.
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