Brian Greenspun on why Bush’s energy plan for a post-9/11 world is too little and way too late is too little and way too late

Sunday, Feb. 5, 2006 | 12:32 p.m.

It takes a lot of energy to lead this country.

It also takes a lot of energy to run this country. So, without the right leadership, the United States will continue to run until the dial registers empty. That's when the people will ask, as they always do, "what happened? How did our leaders let us run out of gas?"

President Bush's State of the Union speech last Tuesday got good marks - not great ones - because he followed the script that had most likely been written by Karl Rove and hit most of the issues that the people of this country wanted to hear hit. Presidents have normally used the State of the Union address to set out their goals and assure the country that we are on the right track -- whichever track that happens to be. When times are good, the president is usually expansive in his vision and forward-thinking in his message. When times are not so good, our chief executive usually takes a more modest tone.

Tuesday night, Bush told us that we were in great shape and proceeded to utter a speech in the most modest of tones. This apparent contradiction is what stood out most in my mind when asked the inevitable, "What did you think?" It also caused me to view with disappointment and no small degree of frustration the words that he did say.

For me, the most glaring example of Bush's profession of leadership ability and his inexplicable refusal to lead came during his discussion of the energy crisis that exists in the United States. Claiming that our country was "addicted to oil," he made a dramatic and mostly unforgettable promise to lead this country to oil independence by the year 2025.

There was a little bit of good news in his commitment and that is the acknowledgement that we are addicted to the black gold that flows in large part from the wells of other nations - the largest of which are the same ones that cause us the most trouble from a security and safety standpoint - and that we had to do something about it. Right now. The bad news - which was overwhelming - was that he was going to get right on the task of weaning us away and set a course for indpendence in 20 years!

Excuse me? Did I hear that right?

We have a major national security issue, which stems directly from our voracious and uncontrollable appetite for the oil that the people who hate us around the world control, and our president wants to take the next 20 years to fix the problem! That doesn't sound like leadership to me, it sounds like the opposite. No leadership at all.

Let me tell you what I heard when the president said 2025. I heard that not only will he not have to make a decision but, conceivably, the next two or three presidents won't have to make a hard decision either. That means that he can tell everyone of us exactly what we want to hear - that we will once and for all be free from not only the economic dependence but also the political subservience that has emasculated our foreign policy for decades. And while that may have been tolerable in a pre-9/11 world, it is completely unacceptable in a world in which global terrorism is fueled from the very same wells that feed our addiction.

Many of our presidents have warned about oil dependence and refused to do much about it. We always let them slide because life was relatively good. But that was pre-9/11. Today this country expects its leaders to make decisions in light of the changed terrorist map, a map that puts terrorist support, training and encouragement in many of the same places from which our overpriced oil flows. We no longer have the luxury of just talking about independence. Now we have to get there.

Almost all of our presidents have talked about requiring auto manufacturers to increase the mileage of the cars they produce, but they all have caved to the political pressures of the auto manufacturing states and their oil-refining brethren. But that was pre-9/11, when it was only global warming at stake. In this post-9/11 world, it is the burning of America and our allies that is at stake, so we can not play the political game. We need leadership now.

It was always fun before 9/11 for presidents to talk about being environmentally conscious and all the economic and job benefits that would accrue from a government-incentive alternative fuel program. Letting them off the hook was easy and politically palatable before the terrorists hit us.

Now it is essential that we start using the energy God gave us - the sun, the wind and the fire of geothermal power - instead of having to overpay for the energy that oil-producing countries make available. In this post-9/11 world, we can no longer afford the luxury of a president who says what we want to hear but who doesn't lead us where we need to go.

If President Bush was serious about leading us to energy independence, he should have set a far more aggressive timetable - remember we went to the moon in less than a decade - and begun last week by asking Congress and the American people to climb aboard. Ever since the terrorists awoke us from our slumber, we have been waiting for our leaders to ask us to make the sacrifices necessary to win this war. Tuesday night was the time that Bush should have asked us for our help.

It is not too late, Mr. President. If you are really serious about getting this country off of foreign oil, this country will get serious about doing our part.

We have the energy for this kind of bold vision. We understand how much safer and stronger this country can be if we set our minds toward a future of renewable, alternative fuels. We also know we can do it in 10 years or less, not the 20 you propose.

The question is, Mr. President, do you have the energy it takes to make this happen? Do you have the will to make it work? Do you have what it takes, sir, to make the state of our union strong, vibrant and safe? Not only from the terrorists but also from their friends in the oil business.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.