ENERGY: We Can Solve It

Today, Texas oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens will testify on "Energy Security" before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. A lifelong oilman, Pickens is in the process of building the world's largest wind farm in Texas, "a $10 billion behemoth that could power a small city by itself." The power from the 4,000 megawatt farm is set to go online by 2011, just three years from now. (By contrast, oil produced through new offshore drilling -- conservatives' panacea to the energy crisis -- would take close to 10 years to reach the market.) "I have the same feelings about wind, as I had about the best oil field I ever found," Pickens told the New York Times. Earlier this month, Pickens released the "Pickens Plan," which advocates expanding wind power and the use of natural gas. "It's our crisis," Pickens says at the end of his first TV spot promoting his plan, "and we can solve it." John Podesta, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, praised Pickens' plan: "It is time to believe in America's ability to solve problems again. With clean energy, we can finally break our dependence on oil."

GORE'S GOAL: Pickens' message echoes the themes of former vice president Al Gore's WeCanSolveIt campaign, launched earlier this spring. Speaking in Washington, D.C. last Thursday, Gore warned, "The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk." He called for a new, ambitious goal to derive 100 percent of all American electricity from clean, renewable sources, such as wind, solar, and geothermal power. Calling the goal "achievable, affordable and transformative," Gore declared that the science of global warming requires immediate action. In fact, he explained, the entire North polar ice cap is likely to melt completely in the summer months within five years. "The leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis," he said. On NBC's Meet the Press Sunday, Gore emphasized the emergency the world is facing. "This climate crisis is threatening our country, threatening all of human civilization," he said. "I know that sounds shrill, and I know people don't like to hear phrases like that, but it is the reality. We have to awaken to it, and we have to mobilize to confront it."

A GORE-PICKENS PLAN: Pickens and Gore approach the issue from two perspectives. Pickens believes that oil production has reached maximum capacity, while Gore is concerned about the pressing disaster of global warming. Yet both problems point to the need for real energy solutions through the implementation of clean, renewable sources. Though Gore notes that his recent speech laid out a goal, not a prescription, there are clear paths towards achieving it. "The United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind power," the Pickens Plan website says. "Building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota could produce 20% of the electricity for the United States at a cost of $1 trillion" -- which would allow for the production of a free, inexhaustible power source and is a bargain compared to the $700 billion the United States spends on foreign oil every year. What's clear to both Pickens and Gore is what is not the answer: drilling for more oil. "This is one emergency we can't drill our way out of," Pickens declares in the plan's first TV spot. Speaking at the Netroots Nation convention this Saturday, Gore commented on the absurdity of increased drilling to address global warming, comparing it to an old remedy for a hangover: "the hair of the dog that bit you." "They'd recommend just going in and having another drink in the morning. That's sort of what that reminds me of," said Gore. "When you're in a hole, stop digging."

CONSERVATIVES STONEWALL: On Meet the Press, Gore remarked, "The only limiting factor here is political will." Achieving Gore's goal or enacting the Pickens Plan won't be easy. Last December, conservatives led by President Bush successfully stripped a measure from the 2007 energy bill requiring a mere 15 percent of American electricity to be generated from renewable sources -- a far cry from Gore's 100 percent goal. Conservatives have attached themselves to former Speaker Newt Gingrich's plan to "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less," despite the fact that expanding domestic drilling "would not have a significant impact" on oil production or gas prices "before 2030," according to the Energy Information Agency. Conservatives still like to mock renewable power. "I'm not entirely convinced," said Rep. John E. Peterson (R-PA) said of Pickens's push for wind power. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) said disparagingly, "You can't run the most heavily industrialized nation in the world on windmills." Last week, Rush Limbaugh claimed it was "very, very sad" that Americans "have bought into this whole notion that alternatives are somehow pristine, clean and pure." These conservatives ignore the fact that, as Gore pointed out, "enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to...meet 100 percent of US electricity demand."

"The Progress Report"