The First Energy President

The New York Times
January 5, 2007

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, Op-Ed Columnist
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/opinion/05friedman.html

Now that President Gerald Ford has been buried
with all the honors he deserved, it is time to
discuss a proper memorial. I would suggest the
Gerald Ford Energy Independence Act.

Few people remember today, but “Gerald Ford was
the first U.S. president to really use the levers
of the presidency to try to break our addiction
to oil,” said the energy economist Philip
Verleger Jr. “He was way ahead of his time.”

Well, his time has come again — and then some.

The greatest thing George Bush could do — for
President Ford’s legacy and his own — would be to
dedicate his coming State of the Union address to
completing the energy independence agenda that
Mr. Ford initiated 32 years ago in the wake of
the 1973 Arab oil embargo and energy shock.

As the page titled “Energy” from the Ford
presidential library Web site reminds us: “Early
in his administration, President Ford said that
he would not sit by and watch the nation continue
to talk about an energy crisis and do nothing
about it. Nor, he said, would he accept halfway
measures which failed to change the direction
that has made our nation so vulnerable to foreign
economic interests. The president proposed firm
but necessary measures designed to achieve energy
independence for the U.S. by 1985, and to regain
our position of world leadership in energy.”

In his 1975 State of the Union speech, President
Ford laid out his vision: “I have a very deep
belief in America’s capabilities. Within the next
10 years, my program envisions: 200 major nuclear
power plants; 250 major new coal mines; 150 major
coal-fired power plants; 30 major new [oil]
refineries; 20 major new synthetic fuel plants;
the drilling of many thousands of new oil wells;
the insulation of 18 million homes; and the
manufacturing and the sale of millions of new
automobiles, trucks and buses that use much less
fuel. ... In another crisis — the one in 1942 —
President Franklin D. Roosevelt said this country
would build 60,000 military aircraft. By 1943,
production in that program had reached 125,000
aircraft annually. They did it then. We can do it now.”

Obviously, President Ford’s emphasis on coal and
domestic oil came in age when most people were
unaware of climate change. Still, Mr. Ford wasn’t
just all talk on energy. He used his presidential
powers to impose a $3-a-barrel fee on imported
oil to reduce consumption. That was a big deal,
noted Mr. Verleger, because the average cost of
imported crude at the time was only $10.76 a barrel.

Yes, you read that right. A Republican president
actually imposed an import fee on oil to curb
consumption! Yes, President Bush, it can be done! The republic survived!

Thanks to the Energy Policy Conservation Act of
1975 and other measures, Mr. Ford’s energy legacy
includes: the creation of the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve for use in an emergency; the phasing out
of domestic price controls on oil to encourage
more exploration; major investment in alternative
energy research; assistance to states in
developing energy conservation programs; and,
most important, the creation of the first
compulsory mileage standards for U.S. automobiles.

Those mileage standards have barely been
tightened since 1975 — because some idiotic
congressmen from Michigan, who thought they were
protecting Detroit, have blocked efforts to raise
them. So, Japanese automakers innovated more in
that area, and the rest is history — or in the case of Detroit, obituary.

Every 10 years we say to ourselves, “If only we
had done the right thing 10 years ago.” Well,
President Bush has a chance in his State of the
Union to call on Americans to honor Mr. Ford by
completing his vision. But it means asking
Americans to do some hard things: accepting a
gasoline or carbon tax; inducing Detroit to make
more fuel-efficient cars, trucks and plug-in
hybrids; setting a national requirement for
utilities to provide 20 percent of their
electricity from renewable wind, solar, hydro or
nuclear power by 2015; and, finally, making
large-scale investments in mass transit.

It is stunning that since 9/11 the Bush team has
never mounted a campaign to get Americans to conserve energy.

“Ford called for zero oil imports by 1985,” said
Mr. Verleger. “Instead, we imported five million
barrels a day then. In 2006, imports will average
almost 14 million barrels a day. Had we achieved
everything Ford proposed, the price of oil today
would be $20 a barrel, not $60, the polar ice
caps might not be melting, the polar bear might
still have a chance, and our children would have a future.”