TIMES crunches the numbers and comes up with some encouraging data…

The initial data released by Department of Transportation, however, shows that so far cash for clunkers has been a green success. The clunkers averaged 15.8 m.p.g., compared with 25.4 m.p.g. for the new vehicles purchased, for an average fuel-economy increase of 61%.

On the whole, American drivers are trading in inefficient trucks and SUVs for much more efficient passenger cars. Car manufacturers like Nissan are already retooling some models to improve their fuel economy so they can qualify for the credits.

But they rightly points out the potential pitfall in this situation…

It’s called the efficiency paradox: as we get more efficient at using energy — through less wasteful cars and appliances — the overall cost of energy goes down, but we respond by using more of it. In the case of cars, that means driving more. Ultimately our gas bill stays the same, but we spend more time on the road and pump the same amount of greenhouse-gas emissions into the atmosphere. The earth isn’t any better off.

This is one reason why it makes sense to have gas at a fixed cost that doesn’t go below that. Car makers have long be clamoring for this because without it the CAFE standards that the government sets don’t push people to buy the more fuel efficient cars if gas is cheap.

Is raising the fuel prices to a set level next on the Dems’ agenda? If not, should it be?

• Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old on the trade-in date
• Only purchase or lease of new vehicles qualify
• Generally, trade-in vehicles must get 18 or less MPG (some very large pick-up trucks and cargo vans have different requirements)
• Trade-in vehicles must be registered and insured continuously for the full year preceding the trade-in
• You don’t need a voucher, dealers will apply a credit at purchase
• Program runs through Nov 1, 2009 or when the funds are exhausted, whichever comes first.
• The program requires the scrapping of your eligible trade-in vehicle, and that the dealer disclose to you an estimate of the scrap value of your trade-in. The scrap value, however minimal, will be in addition to the rebate, and not in place of the rebate.

So what are your thought about the program? Will you take advantage of it?

Looks like the world’s largest retailer is getting serious about green.

From The Register:

The five latest stores in Walmart’s pilot program, which now totals 20 stores, Sam’s Clubs, and distribution centers in Hawaii and California, will all be located in sunny Puerto Rico. Their solar installations will be provided by SunEdison, described by Walmart as being “North America’s largest solar energy services provider.”

Walmart, however, won’t be buying the solar systems from SunEdison. Instead, that panel punter will finance, own, build, and operate them itself, and sell the generated juice to Walmart. The systems will provide the stores with 25 to 35 per cent of their electrical needs, and are projected to produce 90 million kWh of power over the 15-year life of the project.

Walmart is dead serious about solar power, stating in their most recent Solar Power Fact Sheet that “our goal [is] 100 percent renewable energy.”

Obviously this is encouraging because, if it works and Wal-Mart can create a compelling enough business case, it’ll force other retailers to follow suit.

More as it develops…

In one of those “every silver lining has a cloud” kind of situations, state and federal government road maintenance funds are dwindling as people drive less and use less gasoline per mile as they buy more fuel efficient cars. The federal government had to put $8 billion into the Highway Trust Fund because plummeting gas tax revenue, and a Congressional commission put forth one possible solution that is kicking up a lot of opposition.

Instead of paying a tax per gallon at the pump, how about you install an expensive device on your car that tracked how far you drive, and then you get a bill depending on how long you were on the road?

I really tried to come up with some merits for this plan, but frankly this tax per mile plan is just a terrible idea. If there were no other alternatives, then this may work, since we do need money to pay for roads and highways and it makes most sense to tax the actions that cause those roads and highways to wear out. But don’t we already have ways of paying for roads?

We currently pay for our roads mostly through the gasoline tax. Both the federal government and the states charge a certain amount per gallon of gasoline you pump into your car. Essentially what you’re seeing here is a problem where politicians have been reluctant to raise the gas tax to meet the needs of the programs it funds, and are looking for a different way to do so that might not seem as bad to constituents.

Problem is, its much worse than the gas tax.

There is no infrastructure needed to implement the gas tax. It’s added on to every gallon you pump at the gas station. With this plan every car would need to be outfitted with a device (that currently run in the thousands, but could be brought down into the hundreds apparently) that would track your mileage, then you would have to go to some place that you could upload this information every so often (presumably also at gas stations) and you’d get a bill for your mileage tax. So instead of raising an existing tax to fill the budgetary gap, they’d like to raise a new tax and spend billions on the devices needed on our cars, as well as the collection devices needed to get that information to the state.

As if I needed any more reasons, there is the issue of how the gas tax already encourages behavior that not only is good for the country, but also good for the environment… and even good for the roads. Which cars do you think are going to wear the roads down more? Big gas guzzling Hummers, trucks, sports cars and semis, or Smart cars, Priuses and Insights? Gas guzzlers also cause more money to flow to oil producing countries overseas, and send more pollution into the air.

Raising the gas tax to pay for roads makes much more logical sense than making people pay the same per mile if we want to wean ourselves off of foreign oil, get cleaner air and put less stress on the roads. It encourages people to buy lighter, cleaner and more efficient cars, and raising it more would decrease the time it takes to make up the difference in purchasing cost between regular cars and their more efficient brethren. This proposal would literally be a disincentive, counteracting with other government programs designed precisely to encourage purchase of more efficient vehicles.

On the bright side, Obama has come out flatly against the plan, even though his Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has made comments in favor of the idea. Barbara Boxer supports it, which you might expect from one of the most liberal Senators we’ve got, but the only poll I could find on the subject shows that 70% of respondents (North Carolinians) are against the idea. An older poll that I dug up, showed that while most people are against a hike, 55% would support it if it “reduced the U.S. dependence on foreign oil”. An even larger majority, said they’d support it if it “resulted in less consumption or eased the threat of global warming”.

So I come back to my original problem with this proposal. If the public is against the idea, is it a disincentive for behaviors that the government is already trying to promote with other programs, adds unnecessary infrastructure and of course adds a whole new tax to complicated the already labyrinthine code we have here… then what is a single good reason to support this over a higher gas tax?

The federal gas tax has sat at the same 18.4 cents per gallon for 16 years. That it hasn’t gone up in so long is a clear indication of who is to blame for the Highway Trust Fund running out of money. Its time for politicians to suck it up and tell people they need to either cough up a few more cents per gallon, or learn to live with a whole lot more potholes.

I’ve been genuinely intrigued at how much fiction and reality have been intersecting recently.

See, there’s this film called MOON and it follows the story of a guy working on the far side of the moon who figures out that there’s a lot more to his mission than collecting the natural resource Helium-3. It’s a fantastic piece of science fiction cinema and if you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and catch it while it’s still in theatres.

But after seeing it I discovered that not only is the energy source they talked about in the movie real, but it’s clean, supposedly economically viable and extremely plentiful on the moon’s surface.

More at True/Slant.

We’ve been hearing about cellulosic ethanol for several years now, generally with the caveat that were at least a few years, and a few scientific breakthroughs, away from it coming to market and helping wean us from foreign oil. Unlike corn, which breaks down into the sugars necessary to be processed into ethanol relatively easily, cellulose is a hardy material that takes time and energy to break down. Its upside is that there happens to be more cellulose present than any other organic molecule on the planet. This is why millions upon millions of dollars has been poured into cellulosic ethanol research, genetically modifying naturally occurring enzymes to break it down faster and looking for ways to bring the price per gallon down closer to the price of gasoline.

Unlike corn, which takes land out of food production, is inefficient as far as how much energy it takes to produce and is a high maintenance crop, finding raw material for a cellulosic plant is easy. Wood chips from sawmills, the kudzu scourge spreading through the hot and humid Southeast, agricultural waste and even up to 80 percent of what ends up in our landfills could be used to make cellulosic ethanol.  Thankfully, the millions of dollars in research and development have begun to bear fruit.

A gas station near Ottawa is the first in the world to begin selling a cellulosic blend, called CE-10, to the public. Iogen, the company behind the demonstration plant that produced the fuel, plans to build its first full scale cellulosic ethanol plant in Saskatchewan. It has reached an agreement with the local government and Royal Dutch Shell to convert an old Mill site to their purposes, with the government even agreeing to purchase any green energy produced at the site. The running demonstration plant only has the capacity to produce about 3 million liters of ethanol each year, using wheat straw agricultural waste, while the new plant will be able to pump out about 75 million liters. It will make use of a more diverse feed stock, including agricultural waste from other crops, grasses native to nearby areas and even wood chips from area mills.

The march of progress continues, with a number of large companies making big investments into these technologies. Last year GM purchased a large share of Coskata, a big player in the emerging cellulosic ethanol industry, who claims to have developed a process that simplefies the complex and costly process of breaking down cellulose and brings the cost of production down to being competitive with gasoline. There are as many as two dozen companies with plans to build plants similar to Iogen’s, but the economic downturn is effecting their ability to finance these projects. Coskata is hoping to get some stimulus money, in the form of loan guarantees, to help finance its plant, with an estimated production of 50-100 million gallons a year.

As President Obama often says, if we intend to be a leader in the green energy industry of tomorrow, we need to move boldly in that direction today. Now is not the time to let companies who wish to lead us in there falter because of financing problems. Some are talking about a new stimulus bill, which most people reasonably see as a terrible idea, that would focus on these kinds of projects and job creation. The first should have done so, and I have little confidence that a new one would make it through congress without being similarly unfocused and pork laden.

We don’t get too many of these chances, where we can kill three birds with one stone. Job creation, independence from foreign oil and environmental progress can all be had with some smart funding priorities. Lets hope the administration recognizes this in time.

After I read Matt Taibbi’s piece about Goldman Sachs gaming the oil/gas marketplace and wrote my own response, I started to think about the massive $24.3 billion budget deficit in California, and I wondered, “How could they get that far in the hole?”

Sure, the global economy has tanked the past couple years and revenues aren’t coming in like they were, but how can the gap be so vast? Because we’re not talking a couple billion dollars. This took some doing and I had a really hard time believing this was due to simple revenue shortfalls or excess expenditures on infrastructure, health care, welfare and schools.

Read more at True/Slant.

Most people don’t realize that the insane gas prices last year had nothing to do with increased demand and had everything to do with market speculation and hoarding encouraged by the top investment banks.

Now True/Slant’s own Matt Taibbi uncovers the truth behind the scam.

Read the rest at True/Slant.

The margin was 7 votes. 219 to 212.

Yikes.

Yes, cap and trade is a contentious issue, but most likely because many thought it would significantly raise their taxes...which it won’t according to the CBO.

More from CNN:

The bill would reduce nationwide greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050 through a so-called “cap-and-trade” program under which companies would buy and sell emissions credits. Among other things, the bill would also require utilities to generate an increasing amount of power from renewable sources.

The House vote came one day after President Barack Obama made an urgent plea for congressional approval in what could be an early make-or-break test of his young administration.

“Now is the time for us to lead,” Obama said during an appearance Thursday in the White House Rose Garden. “We cannot be afraid of the future. We cannot be prisoners to the past.”

The president said the bill will spark a “clean energy transformation” of the U.S. economy and “make possible the creation of millions of new jobs.”

“Make no mistake,” he emphasized. “This is a jobs bill.”

Indeed. This is a jobs bill. And it represents a distinct shift away from the energy policies of old. No wonder it’s unpopular in the House, where Dems from West Virginia and Michigan no doubt lambasted by

Still, the road forward could be tough, as the Senate hasn’t even put forward their version of the bill. But my guess is it’ll happen soon enough since the focus needs to be on health care the rest of the summer.

By the way, there was a Republican alternative, but it was voted down along party lines.

And while it sounded intriguing, it essentially amounted to a lot more of the same we’ve had. However, at least they came up with competing legislation…

The GOP proposal was defeated 172-255. The measure would have scuttled a proposed cap-and-trade system to cut greenhouse gases.

Instead, it called for an aggressive push for research on a broad range of energy programs from solar power and development of biofuels to radioactive waste and nuclear fusion.

Once the Senate bill comes up for review, I’ll share it.

Congressional Republicans have been telling voters that the cap and trade energy policy that’s set for a vote on Friday will cost each household about $3,100.

CBO puts the lie to those numbers and shows that they’re nearly 20 times the actual costs…in 2020.

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Climate change legislation pending in Congress would cost U.S. households only about $175 annually in higher energy and consumer prices, far less than the $3,100 “burden” opponents have claimed would result, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate.

“The net annual economy wide cost of the cap and trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion, or about $175 per household,” the CBO, which gives Congress nonpartisan advice about the impact of legislation under consideration, said in an analysis delivered to Congress late on Friday.

And that’s just the average price. These costs would be distributed differently based on incomes…

Low-income households would see an average net benefit of $40, mostly through rebates and other aid, while high-income families could see added net costs of $245 per year in 2020.

Think high-income families can afford an additional $245 a year so we can move much closer to energy independence?

Moving on…

This Tuesday, Joe Biden will be traveling to a solar panel manufacturer near Toledo, Ohio to put his money where his mouth is. Willard & Kelsey Solar Group just received $10 Million from the Economic Stimulus Plan to create up to 3,500 new jobs making thin photo-voltaic cells for residential and commercial use.  VP Biden will tour the facility at 10 AM and hold a middle class task force meeting titled “Promoting American Manufacturing in the 21st Century” afterwards. He’ll discuss the state of the manufacturing industry, how the administration is supporting manufacturing communities presently and what they have planned for the future.

Read more Quotes about Father’s Day and Plans for Michigan here!

Found this on Political Wire and it’s typical of the nonsense we heard from her during the campaign…

Palin: We are the only state with a negative tax rate where we don’t have any income, sales or property tax statewide, and yes we have a share of our oil resource revenue that goes back to the people that own the resources. Imagine that.

Hannity: And it went up higher since you’ve been the governor and you negotiated with the oil companies. That all went up so people get a bigger check.

Palin: There was a corrupt tax system up there and we had a couple of lawmakers end up in jail because of the tax system that was adopted so we cleaned it up and said we wanted a fair and equitable share of the resources that we own, and the people will share in those resource revenues that are derived.

Haha, yeah, imagine that! The people collectively owning the land and spreading the wealth derived from it between everybody.

Why, that’s just good ole, Alaskan capitalism!

And the video…

I swear…it’s like a comedy routine.

Following up on my ethanol post and considering how destructive fuel is in general, shouldn’t the US be investing heavily in fueless tech like this? After all, if fuel simply goes away, that’s the ideal state, is it not?

I’ve said it before on this blog, but it bears repeating…the ethanol industry is not good for this country.

But instead of paying attention to the facts, there’s a new lobbying push headed by General Wesley Clark to up the mandated 10% in our fuel supply to 15%.

Why? Because the industry is going bankrupt and they need the market gamed for them.

Ugh.

And as this Business Week article points out, there are A LOT of other problems too…

First, the primary job of the Environmental Protection Agency is, dare it be said, to protect our environment. Yet using ethanol actually creates more smog than using regular gas, and the EPA’s own attorneys had to admit that fact in front of the justices presiding over the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1995 (API v. EPA).

Second, truly independent studies on ethanol, such as those written by Tad Patzek of Berkeley and David Pimentel of Cornell, show that ethanol is a net energy loser. Other studies suggest there is a small net energy gain from it.

Third, all fuels laced with ethanol reduce the vehicle’s fuel efficiency, and the E85 blend drops gas mileage between 30% and 40%, depending on whether you use the EPA’s fuel mileage standards (fueleconomy.gov) or those of the Dept. of Energy.

Fourth, forget what biofuels have done to the price of foodstuffs worldwide over the past three years; the science seems to suggest that using ethanol increases global warming emissions over the use of straight gasoline. Just these issues should have kept ethanol from being brought back for its fourth run in American history.

And if all of those reasons aren’t bad enough, the additive is also destroying our engines!

Though the media is ignoring it, one can easily find many stories on BMW blogs relating similar problems with fuel systems damaged by the use of ethanol. Certainly that was the case with Christi Jordan and her 2007 Mini. For weeks it was difficult to start; Moritz BMW in Arlington, Tex., inspected it and found severe carbon buildup inside the engine. On her second trip to the mechanics they decided to test the ethanol content of Christi’s fuel and found it was much higher than the federally mandated limit of 10%. This time the fuel pump had been destroyed by the ethanol. The repair bill came to $1,200: As in all cases where vehicles are damaged by ethanol, legally the factory warranty no longer applied.

All of this seems so obvious and yet we won’t let this industry die. Why? I can’t help but think one of the key reasons the it exists is because Iowa has one of the first presidential primaries, so it skews the political opinion towards supporting a market that is completely fabricated.

That’s why it’s up to us. Please try and spread the word in your social spaces about the real effects of ethanol and let’s shine a little light on this growing scam.

This is an extreme example, but I can’t help but think car companies can easily hit the 35 MPG mileage standards Obama is about to lay out if the following is possible for a street ready car.

From Green Car:

Volkswagen’s CEO, Martin Winterkorn recently confirmed the company is working on a car that will get 235 mpg (1 liter per 100 kilometers) fuel economy. In 2002, VW showed its 1-Liter concept car that achieved 264 mpg (0.89L/100km). The project was cancelled in 2005 but VW has now revived it. How real is this? VW now says a limited production car could be offered by 2010.

The VW 1-Liter, developed in a wind tunnel, has a very narrow and very flat body configuration that necessitated tandem seating for the two occupants. Measuring in at 4.1 feet wide, 11.4 feet long, and just over 3 feet tall, the car features an amazing drag coefficient of just 0.159…even more wind-cheating than the slippery GM EV1 electric car’s 0.19 Cd. With its 235 mpg fuel economy, it can travel 400 miles on its 1.7 gallon fuel tank…all the while achieving a 75 mph top speed.

The future of cars is small and lightweight. Bet on it.

This is a pretty big stake in the ground, because they’ll be using California’s standards…the toughest in the nation.

No doubt you’ll be hearing that this is bad for business, but that’s what they said about seat belts, airbags and every other time CAFE standards were raised. And I think we’re all fairly aware that the car companies who’ve prospered are the ones who offered the highest fuel efficiency standards the earliest.

From NY Times:

President Obama will announce as early as Tuesday that he will combine that state’s emissions rules with the existing corporate average fuel economy standard overseen by the Transportation Department, the officials said. As a result, cars and light trucks sold in the United States will be roughly 30 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016.

The White House would not divulge details, but environmental advocates and industry officials briefed on the program said that the president would grant California’s longstanding request to implement its tailpipe standards. Thirteen other states and the District of Columbia have said they intend to apply the same rules. That request had been denied by the Bush administration but has been under review by top Obama administration officials since January.

Yet Mr. Obama is planning to go further, effectively issuing a single rule for both fuel economy and emissions that matches California’s strictest-in-the-nation standards.

Under the new standard, the new combined fuel efficiency standard for cars and light trucks will be about 35 miles per gallon by 2016, roughly in line with the California rule.

In my mind this is a smart move for many reasons, not the least of which is you diffuse the emissions standards argument immediately. Yes, it will upset states rights’ advocates, but how does it makes sense that a state should be able to determine whether or not certain pollution levels are acceptable or how much mileage cars can have in their locale?

In other words, there are some things that must be mandated by the federal government, and this is one of them. Our long term strategic interests, both for the environment and our dependency on foreign oil, rely on one set of standards across the board.

More as it develops…

While attending the Offshore Technology Conference earlier this week (on sponsorship by the American Petroleum Institute), one truth became very apparent: opening up the outer continental shelf to oil and gas exploration would create a lot of jobs.

Right now, our government is spending hundreds of billions in an effort to revitalize the economy, but President Obama has extended the “public comment period” on OCS exploration/drilling until later this year, preventing any movement forward in that sector. The message is pretty clear: all jobs are not equal. Ideologically, this might make sense, but from a practical standpoint – with our need for jobs and for future energy sources – shouldn’t we proceed with exploration sooner rather than later?

According to the API, the industry employs 1.8 million Americans directly and supports another 4 million jobs in ancillary industries. Furthermore, wages for exploration and production jobs are double the national average. Better yet, creating more of these jobs would cost the nation nothing – in fact,ICF International estimated for the API that currently untapped offshore oil and gas resources could generate $1.3 trillion in government revenue over the life of those resources.

Even if the numbers above are overstated, it’s surprising how little attention offshore exploration and drilling has received during discussions on how to improve the economy. For various reasons, some of our leaders have a reflexive dislike of the oil and gas industry. But there is no reason why we can’t pump money and efforts into renewable energy and “green” jobs even while we create jobs in oil and gas (and help generate a bit more energy security in the process).

In my mind, offshore exploration and drilling should be one prong in our multi-pronged approach to both job creation and energy policy.

On my final day at the Offshore Technology Conference, I attended a panel on climate change. Now, you might expect an oil and gas industry convention would prefer not to discuss the effects of CO2 emissions. But the panel included three scientists who all gave mini-lectures intended to convince the audience that global warming is underway and that it’s the direct result of human activity. The word of the day was “unequivocal.”

If you are the type to believe serious scientists aren’t part of some global leftist conspiracy, the data is quite convincing. However, the panel suffered from a lack of credible skepticism. The only panel member who doubted the “unequivocal” nature of the conclusions was a man named Carl Langner, a climate change hobbyist(for lack of a better word). Not only was he a last minute addition to the panel and thus without a nifty PowerPoint presentation, he also lacked a scientific background, making his remarks easy to discount.

Now, I’m sure a lot of people would say there is no such thing as credible skepticism on this issue because, they would argue, any skepticism is based on corrupt self interest or ignorance. Problem is, there are a lot of people who reject the scientific conclusions, such as Gateway Pundit, who also attended the session this morning and came away convinced the panel was nothing more than global warming religionists.

So how do we move forward? Well, with the Democrats solidly in control, skeptics will likely be pushed aside. But, really, the skeptics’ fixation on proving the science false is just a symptom of the greater issue — namely that a lot of people are concerned that action to reduce CO2 emissions will drastically harm our economy without any serious benefit to the climate.

If those who support combating global warming could drop the moralizing and adopt a “how can we do this without harming business” attitude, we might find more common ground. It’s fine for the President and others to talk about creating “Green jobs,” but we have to make sure we’re not sacrificing the jobs we actually have now for one’s which we may or may not have later.

The science may indeed be unequivocal, but our next step is still up for debate. We can’t let our fear of a warmer world lead us to take rash action. We must balance the total cost, weighing quality of life, employment, economic viability and our climate. We should take action. But we need to make sure it’s the right action.

Today at the Offshore Technology Conference (which I am at on sponsorship by the American Petroleum Institute), I attended a panel discussion titled: The Case for Access to Oil and Gas Resources on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. As the title and graphic to my post probably reveal, the panel was less reasonable than the one I attended yesterday.

Let me say, first of all, I support exploration of the outer continental shelf. It’s been nearly 30 years since anyone has done oil and gas surveying and we need to know how much hydrocarbons are recoverable in the waters off our Eastern and Western seaboards. Exploration should be a no-brainer — we’re going to need oil and gas for many years to come, no matter how fast we ramp up renewable energy sources.

All that said, I was put-off by the anti-environmentalist (as distinct from anti-environmental) attitude of the panel. There seemed to be a general perception that if the environmentalists just got out of the way, the oil and gas companies would take care of things in the best possible way. The situation devolved to a point where one member of the audience accused characters like Dora the Explorer of “indoctrinating” our youth — and no one on the panel seemed to disagree.

As far as I’m concerned, there is no reasonable link between teaching children to conserve and recycle (as Dora does) and the issues surrounding OCS exploration and drilling. The panelists consistently said we need to find common ground, and yet they often had no problem lumping positive environmentalism with the kind of short-sighted, anti-oil crusades being waged by some of the less intellectually honest members of the left. You can’t say you want engagement on the issue (as these industry leaders say they want) and then act like Dora the Explorer is some leftist plot to ruin our future.

I know those on the panel and in the audience were just voicing their frustrations in a closed environment. In the real world, I imagine they are more willing to interact with their Green counterparts. However, I don’t think progress can be achieved so long as oil and gas interests see themselves as some kind of victim. Yes, we need to explore and drill in areas previously off limits. We have the clean technology and high-end machinery capable of making such efforts efficient and of minimal impact to the environment. But if the oil and gas industry wants to convince the majority of Americans of this necessity, they need to be able to separate positive environmentalism with ill-informed obstructionism.

There should be a common ground solution to our future energy needs. But both sides need to move away from demonization.

From today through mid-week, I’m in Houston attending the Offshore Technology Conference. I’m here on the sponsorship of the American Petroleum Institute which has brought in a cadre of bloggers, presumably to help generate coverage and discussion of petroleum issues. Since I believe energy and climate change policy will be some of the most important debates we have over the coming years, I wanted to take this opportunity to delve deeper into the issue.

This morning, I attended a panel focused on meeting our energy challenges. The panelists included an array of wonks, consumer groups, politicians and industry leaders. Going in, I was wary I might be subjected to a bunch of spin. But the group managed to present some very reasonable arguments, concerns and ideas about our nation’s energy policies.

Jason Grumet, who is the Executive Director of the National Commission on Energy Policy and who advised President Obama during the campaign, set the tone with his assertion that in order to move forward, we must first “move beyond the debate careening between ANWR and Kyoto.” Roger Ballentine of the Progressive Policy Institute also pushed this idea, stating that energy policy has become too politicized and we can’t afford to have two sides who talk past each other.

Needless to say, this kind of post-partisan rhetoric caught my attention. As did the statement by Marvin Odum, president of the Shell Oil Company, that he supports cap and trade. That came with the caveat that the policy be “done right,” (i.e. with safeguards to prevent shocking the economy), but in my naiveté, I assumed an oil company would be reflexively against measures such as CO2 cap and trade.

In fact, throughout the nearly three hour discussion, I heard wide agreement that we need to focus on both climate change AND energy policy — and separating the two and picking sides will only prevent anything from being achieved.

In the face of the current financial crisis, we easily forget that a year ago, we were all talking about $4 gasoline. While those costs have fallen dramatically, we’d be foolish to think our problems are resolved. We need a multi-pronged approach to addressing our future energy needs: conservation, alternative energy sources and, yes, more exploration.

Over the next few days I’ll be reporting on and discussing all of these. Check back in.