News & Views

To our next President,

Please make the hard choices needed to wean this country off of oil, and in particular, foreign oil. Our dependence on foreign oil is the cause of many of our current economic problems. We all know resource stability is the real reason our military men and women are dying in the desert so far from home. The massive money we pump into the economy of that region is a big part of the reason why radical Middle-Eastern leaders can afford to fight these wars. Our $700,000,000,000 worth of foreign oil purchases every year is killing the economy of our nation and turning the Middle East into a bloody, war-scarred, wasteland.

Our excessive oil addiction is also helping to kill our planet. It is contributing to global climate change. Our use of oil is a primary cause of poor air quality and widespread respiratory problems in our cities. It is depleting the ozone. It is destroying our fresh water supply by melting our worldwide ice reserves. It is creating toxic chemical waste. It is polluting our once-pristine oceans and killing the foundations of the entire food chain. We are killing ourselves in order to maintain our addiction to oil. It really has to end.

We seriously need to stop paying the radical leaders of Middle Eastern countries hundreds of billions of dollars of our money for their oil just so they can turn around and use the money to build more bombs to throw back at us. We need to stop funding their armies with our massive oil purchases and bring that oil money back home where we can use it to solve our own problems. We need to stop buying foreign oil.

Mr. T. Boone Pickens' Plan would certainly help move us toward this goal, but please don't stop there. We need to do much more. In fact, we need to do everything we possibly can to stop buying foreign oil. Let's make it our national goal to completely eliminate our use of oil as a transportation fuel. Use every resource at your disposal to make it happen. It can even be done quickly, if we pull together as a nation.

Here are my specific suggestions:

First, pull our troops out of all those foreign countries and put them to work helping us here at home. Let the Army Corps of Engineers use some of these returning troops to design and build the infrastructure for a vast new solar, geothermal, and wind enhanced power grid. Focus solely on renewable sources of energy to create this new power grid. Offer jobs and training to our unemployed masses as part of this effort. Let engineering students work on it for intern credit, as well.

Get the media and volunteers involved publicizing and helping wherever possible. Use the Internet and mass media to inspire and motivate every citizen to replace all incandescent bulbs with free compact fluorescent bulbs distributed at government centers. This will reduce overall power consumption immensely to take some load off of older non-renewable power facilities.  Make this project a heavily-publicized nationwide goal and get everyone at every level involved.

Second, use the rest of our troops to build the beginnings of the refueling infrastructure needed to support a nationwide switch to natural gas, fuel cell, and electricity-based transportation. Add one or two natural gas pumps to every gasoline station nationwide to get the process started. Offer assistance in construction of hydrogen production facilities for fuel cells, too. Let the oil companies take it from there, but we need to get them started to guarantee a base distribution infrastructure. Perhaps install emergency charging outlets at motorist emergency call boxes on highways across the nation for electric cars. Do whatever it takes.

The switch away from gasoline is a chicken and egg (refueling infrastructure versus widely available vehicles) scenario which needs a painful first step to be taken. Use the military to help this nation take that first step together. People would love to see our troops here at home solving American problems for a change. If we can get the basic refueling infrastructure put in place, the vehicles will follow quickly.

Third, shift all possible transportation away from oil to natural gas and electric. Force the auto companies to lead the way to a natural gas and electric future by eliminating the production of petroleum engine-based transportation. Supplement the conversion of all existing gasoline engines to natural gas power. Set up conversion centers in every municipality with trained military personnel doing the conversions for free or the price of the parts. Set a deadline for everyone to have it done.

Fourth, encourage the oil companies to further tap our massive resources of natural gas and quickly make it available for sale nationwide. Help them further flesh out the infrastructure for refueling in a nationwide shift to natural gas. Severely restrict any further gasoline distribution for passenger vehicle use. Make it extremely difficult to get gasoline in order to force folks to convert their vehicles.

From now on, strongly encourage the manufacture and purchase of electric vehicles which use natural gas engines or fuel cells(but not petroleum) only to boost their range. The switch to these vehicles will allow us to drastically reduce our oil imports so we really only need the oil we already produce. We may even be able to export some of the oil we have left over.  It would be nice to have money coming into this country for a change.

Why use natural gas?  It just makes the most sense as the transitional step we need in order to move forward toward an independent, sustainable, cleaner energy future. We have extensive reserves of natural gas available here at home. It's cheaper than oil. The oil companies are already invested heavily in it. It's proven as a transportation fuel with over 8 million vehicles already on the roads. Also, the transportation infrastructure and currently-owned vehicles can be converted to it fairly easily and cheaply. Best of all, it burns much cleaner than petroleum, so it's a responsible choice for easy conversion of existing combustion engines.

It will also help us ease the complete transition over the longer term to purely electric (or fuel cell) vehicles. The natural gas-based extended-range electric vehicles will eventually completely replace the current crop of converted gasoline vehicles. Then, purely electric or even fuel cell vehicles will eventually replace the extended-range electric vehicles once the technology finally develops fully. Electric vehicles can be charged using a wide variety of renewable resources, making them ideal for the long-term future. But natural gas is the in-between step we need to get us there.

In addition, our power grid will be slowly converting to renewable sources over the same time period for enhanced long-term stability in our electrical supply. This will spur investment and faster development in those fields, creating massive new energy industries to add to our economy. This path to energy independence is simple and follows a logical progression which people can grasp and best of all, the necessary studies have already been done. We already know where the best wind and solar power are located. We already know how to convert vehicles to run on natural gas. We can begin to do this immediately using technology we already have.

Why use the military for these projects? It's simple. We have the manpower to make huge changes in a very short time if we use the military. Plus, the President has complete control over military operations as Commander-in-Chief. Rather than paying our troops to solve (or interfere with?) the problems of every other country in the world, let the U.N. take care of that. Let's put our troops to work here at home to create our own nation's long-term energy future. Only by assuring our own future can we make certain we are around to help others over the long term. Only by becoming more resource-independent can we become truly economically stable over the long term.

People are fed up with our massive dependence on foreign oil ruining their lives and putting us at the mercy of overpowered radical Middle-Eastern leaders. Even worse, our Earth is quickly being destroyed by our addiction to oil. We want a strong leader to fire us up to work toward a common goal like Kennedy did with the space program. This is the single goal that can pull this nation together like never before.

Mr. President, YOU could go down in history as the American President who led this nation in solving one of the biggest challenges we ever faced. With inspired national focus and enthusiasm, you could even do all of this within your first term by using the military, volunteers, students, and the millions of jobless folks.

This project could make the national accomplishments of the space program and the "new deal" look small by comparison. Inspire us in this fight. Make national pride a big part of our national culture again. Lead us and the world into a stable energy future. Step up and help us proudly declare our Energy Independence!

Respectfully yours,

Bill Dempsey