We can’t break the oil addiction by drilling for more oil

Nathan Lott
Published: August 31, 2008

By NATHAN LOTT

The debate over drilling on federal lands has come home: from the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge to the coast of Virginia. Record-high oil prices — fueled in part by a weak dollar and speculation — led
leaders in both parties to backpedal on longstanding commitments not to place oil rigs on the Atlantic coast. Even as economists of all stripes acknowledged that offshore drilling will do nothing to reduce
prices at the pump, politicians still wavered. Why?

Because we lack a national energy policy that requires more and better energy choices.

America is addicted to oil. We currently spend more than $1 trillion a year on our fossil-fuel addiction, and if we are to believe the rhetoric of Big Oil, the answer to kicking the habit is to drill for more.

But if you’re trying to quit smoking, you don’t ask the Marlboro Man for help, and if you’re serious about quitting your oil addiction, you don’t ask Big Oil for help, either.

What America really needs is not simply more energy but better energy. We deserve energy that is cheaper and cleaner than fossil fuels. We deserve energy that doesn’t force us to choose between
protecting our tourism industry and getting to work, between saving our wildlife and savings on our heating bill.

Imagine a world where everyone could plug a car into the same outlet they use to charge their cell phones; imagine if we could heat and cool our houses not with expensive gas or oil, but with geothermal
energy piped in from beneath our own backyards; imagine flipping on the television and knowing the big game was being brought to you by cheap, clean electricity generated from solar panels on the roof.

THE GOOD NEWS is, these alternative energy technologies are already powering homes and businesses right here in Virginia. The technology exists today to make our homes more energy-efficient and
to provide large-scale renewable energy generation. The technology solutions that help families reduce their forced dependency on fossil fuels are the same technologies that will solve the climate crisis,
clean the air, and help protect Virginia’s natural treasures for our children’s future.

We’re not there yet because Big Oil and Big Coal have been running the show and dictating our “choices.” That’s why this nation still runs on 1950s-era fossil-fuel power. And the strategy has paid off
nicely — last year, the five biggest oil companies made $123 billion in profits. All while our energy prices just kept going up.

In Virginia, coal companies claimed tens of millions in tax credits while coal prices hit record highs and the state budget deficit widened.

We now stand at a crossroads. We can continue to drill ourselves deeper into a hole or we can demand better choices.

With a few incentives that Congress has the ability to create now, large increases in renewable energy production could be brought online in the very near future, giving Americans real energy choices.
Instead of handing billions of dollars in subsidies to the oil and gas industries over the next 10 years, Congress should use that money to promote clean, renewable energy and extend clean-energy tax
credits to the wind and solar industries. These tax credits would help build an industry that in 2006 generated 8.5 million jobs and nearly $970 billion in revenue in America.

In Virginia, lawmakers should beef up the state’s voluntary renewable-energy targets with a mandatory baseline. This would signal to investors and energy companies that our commitment to renewable
energy is real and long-term. And in order to make progress on a General Assembly target of 10 percent greater energy efficiency by 2022, the state should bolster funding for low-income home
weatherization and related programs.

MOST IMPORTANT, Congress must pass comprehensive, cap-and-trade-based climate-change legislation. The Climate Security Act, which gained 54 supporters in the Senate this past spring, would
reduce our oil imports four times more than we could by drilling in the Arctic Refuge, off our beaches, and in the Rocky Mountains combined. And it would save Americans $180 billion through the year
2030 on foreign oil expenditures alone, according to the Department of Energy.

Instead of chasing the last barrel of oil, we need to be chasing a new energy economy that reduces dependency on expensive fossil fuels. American families deserve a consumer-friendly, clean energy
policy that invests in renewable energy and energy conservation. The choice is really quite simple.

Nathan Lott is the executive director of the Virginia Conservation Network. He can be reached at .

— Richmond Times-Dispatch