TresSugar

Fighting the New American Revolution - Energy Independence

CitizenSugar — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 03:00:26 -0700

The US is gearing up to celebrate Independence Day, the day when citizens vowed to fight against crushing taxes, inflation, and a rising price of necessities - Americans took a stand then against tyranny, and fought. Now as the country picnics and watches fireworks to commemorate that fight, is the situation any different?

Taxes, inflation, cost of necessities - what was once tea, is now Texas Tea - oil, all factors point to another fight. Is energy the new American Revolution? In this new battle for independence, are citizens willing to sacrifice to win freedom from the tyrannous and costly addiction we have to standard forms of energy?

John McCain's plan for a modern energy revolution takes that parallel seriously - he's dubbed his energy revolution the "Lexington Project," named for the town where, according to his speech last week, "Americans asserted their independence once before." To see the battle plan for energy independence, read more.

McCain's Lexington Project includes:

Expanding Domestic Oil And Natural Gas Exploration And Production: "John McCain believes it is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions and to put our own reserves to use. There is no easier or more direct way to prove to the world that we will no longer be subject to the whims of others than to expand our production capabilities."
Taking Action Now To Break Our Dependency On Foreign Oil By Reforming Our Transportation Sector: Which includes innovation incentives like his Clean Car Challenge.

Investing In Clean, Alternative Sources Of Energy: The plan commits $2 billion annually to clean coal technologies and 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030.
Protecting Our Environment By Addressing Climate Change: Basically this: "A climate cap-and-trade mechanism would set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions and allow entities to buy and sell rights to emit, similar to the successful acid rain trading program of the early 1990s."
Promoting Energy Efficiency: By making the federal government conserve too - since they are the largest electricity consumer on the planet.
Addressing Speculative Pricing Of Oil: No Carter-inspired windfall profits tax and strict policing on energy market-wagering abuses.

Will this do it? Is the US headed into a new revolution? Is the US ready to wage a war for energy independence? Is it time for a Boston SUV party?

Source

Are We There Yet? Long Campaign Devolves Into Party Favors?

CitizenSugar — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:16:22 -0700

It seems impossible to remember a time BC: Before Campaign. That may be because we've been at this game seriously since 2006. By the time the US votes, it will be a vote two years in the making (at that rate, isn't it time to start the 2012 campaign?) Perhaps because of this stretched out schedule, the capacity for substantive debate has been also stretched - to the snapping point.

Whether a function of the campaigns themselves running out of ways (gimmicks?) to keep themselves in the public eye for an interminable amount of time, the media's fatigue with covering yet another town hall in yet another town, or the public's appetite for newer, better, flashier, the campaign we're seeing now, well it's a little stinky.

Case in point: the Obama Energy Plan tire gauge. I admit, I saw it and winced. Because now that we've seen it all, every move, especially during these lazy days of summer, is heightened in import to a major event - and when McCain is actually out there and talking about his plan in a more conventional way.

Now, the gauge itself, kind of funny. Obama did say we should inflate our tires. The doohickey just takes a statement and gives it legs in a party favor format. And I don't doubt it was meant as a joke - McCain is famous for them, like when Obama was on his big trip abroad, and the McCain team handed out gag press credentials to the domestic-bound crew traveling with him that read "JV Squad: Left Behind to Report in America." I mean just using the word "JV" in an adult setting is inherently funny - but what does it say about the discourse? To find out, and see Paris Hilton's response to the celebrity ad with an energy plan of her own, read more.

Here's the rub: even though stunts like this and the celebrity-filled ad get picked up and talked about, I question whether they might do more harm than good. McCain has an energy plan, the Lexington Project, and it's not too shabby. Obama's got one too and there are substantive comparisons out there, in addition to the candidates' own websites that spell out their entire energy policies. I have faith that there is room for levity and gravitas in the campaign, but given the duration of constant scrutiny, one tire gauge can be spun as the sum total of a plan when that's far from the truth.

Do stories like the tire gauge and the celeb ad make the campaign lighter than air - or simply lighten the mood?

Source