Energy policy for the future

摘要

The issue of energy security is now clearly before us. The need for us to think very seriously about domestic and international energy policy could not be more pressing. As with so many other matters, September 11 has clarified and intensified what needs to be done. So long as I am in this job, I will make sure energy security is my primary concern. What we must understand is that America's energy challenge is now connected with the same issues of national resolve and commitment that we face in foreign and military policy. How we prepare to meet the nation's demand for energy, no less than how we meet the challenge on the battlefield, will send a signal to the world about our willingness to make difficult decisions in the national interest. Energy security is not the same thing as energy independence. Imported energy is just a reminder that we live in a global economy. The recognition that complete energy independence is unlikely does not mean we should ignore the consequences of growing more and more dependent on imported oil and natural gas. When it comes to energy we have a buyer-seller relationship with a host of countries, and these relationships entail all the tensions one would expect. We must come together as a nation to do what we can to meet our growing demand for energy, and we must be willing to make difficult decisions to solve our own problems. We often hear that nothing we do to boost domestic supply in the USA, such as explore for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), is going to make us independent, so we just shouldn't bother. ANWR will not make us independent of foreign oil, but it will help increase our energy security by giving us a substantial source of domestic energy that we can turn to if disruptions occur in external supply. Determination on our part to meet the full range of our energy challenges―from improvements to the electricity grid to more nuclear energy - will show the world that we will not allow ourselves to be at the mercy of others. No one step, of course, is going to make the difference between energy security and energy insecurity. But it seems to me that we can no longer easily dismiss the need for a national energy policy that looks first to energy security―and looks first to making the hard decisions, not the easy ones.