What should make 2008 an interesting year for writing about the oil and gas industry is the developing news about “energy security” in the US and its relationship to the presidential election.
Energy security has become—and will remain—a key platform topic for presidential candidates as November draws closer. While always bright, the spotlight on energy and energy security in the US has been intensified especially after President George W. Bush on Dec. 19 signed into law an energy bill designed to increase vehicle fuel efficiency and reduce US dependence on foreign oil.
The Energy Independence and Security Act mandates the first increase in vehicle fuel economy since 1975 while increasing ethanol production in the US. While called historic by many Democratic members of Congress, the act was opposed by some Republican lawmakers. Dropped from the act were portions that would have raised taxes on oil companies and set renewable fuel standards for electric power generation.
Defining ‘security’
While on the campaign trail, presidential candidates—Democrats and Republicans alike—will have to believably reinforce their own definitions of “energy security” and “energy independence” and how they would uphold these definitions in office.
In a speech at the Brookings Institution on Dec. 18, US Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) said, “I would state unequivocally that energy security and the economic and environmental issues closely associated with it should be the most important topics of the 2008 presidential election (OGJ, Dec. 24, 2007, p. 32).” Lugar asserted that advancements in American energy security have been “painfully slow” over the last 2 years and that political leaders have been “defensive, rather than proactive” on the issue.
The senator said the issue of energy security has never been more crucial, particularly after the release of the International Energy Agency’s annual World Energy Outlook, which projected that global demand for energy would increase by 50% by 2030—with global demand for oil expected to rise from 85 million b/d to 116 million b/d by 2030.
Three reasons
Lugar cited three reasons why energy has assumed such importance in the election:
- Energy is the issue with the widest gulf between what is required to make the US secure and what is likely to be achieved given the inertia of existing programs and congressional proposals.
- Transformational energy policies are likely to be required for achieving economic and social aspirations in the US.
- Energy exacerbates almost every major foreign policy issue.
“Whoever is sworn in as president in 2009 must elevate energy security to the status of a core national goal and must directly engage all the American people in the solution,” Lugar said. “If the next president addresses energy through a familiar ideological prism, the chance to strengthen US national security and economic prosperity will be lost.”
To this end, Lugar said, the next president will have to be “relentless” in his or her pursuit of energy concerns.
It remains to be seen, however, whether a political campaign focused around energy security will entice enough American voters to get a candidate to that level.
