President Obama is seizing the moment to push for major reforms that could dramatically reduce our oil dependence. His administration has already made great progress on vehicle fuel economy and is promising to do more.

America consumes about 20 million barrels of oil and related petroleum products a day. President Obama should introduce a national oil saving plan that builds on recently adopted polices, such the administration’s national clean vehicle standards and the 2007 energy bill's renewable fuel standards. Looking forward, we can, with known technologies and practices, further reduce our oil dependence by a million barrels of oil a day in 2015, 3 million in 2020, and 7 million by 2030. That final figure is about four times the amount of oil we currently import from the Persian Gulf. And to ensure that future presidents carry the plan through, Congress should enshrine it in law by passing comprehensive energy and climate legislation that includes such oil savings requirements.

The largest source of the oil savings would come from improving fuel economy and electrifying part of America’s fleet of cars, trucks and commercial vehicles—solutions the president and Congress already support. But better cars alone won’t be enough. Improving the efficiency of planes, trains, boats and other vehicles would play an essential role. We also could cut U.S. oil demand by accelerating the development of advanced biofuels, improving building efficiency, shifting away from expensive home heating oil, and providing Americans better travel options than leaving them stuck in traffic jams alone in their cars.

We have the technology and policies that will work. What we need now is a commitment to implement them. The BP oil spill disaster is a wake up call to dramatically reduce our dependence on oil. That dependence threatens our economy, our national security, and our environment. The spill is right in front of us, hard evidence that something is fundamentally wrong with how we use energy in this country.

The benefits of reducing our oil dependence far outweigh any perceived difficulties. A wide spectrum of leaders, from corporate CEOs to environmentalists to retired generals and admirals support making our country cleaner and more energy independent. The extraordinary scale of this disaster calls for an extraordinary response. The president should continue to seize this opportunity. He could go down in history as the leader who finally broke our oil addiction.

I won’t predict how the massive Gulf spill will change energy politics, but I hope the lesson for energy policy from this disaster is clear: ALL costs and benefits need to be considered in weighing energy policy options. Many Americans are questioning whether offshore drilling is worth the costs and risks, while some petroleum industry representatives and others have commented that, despite the spill, offshore drilling is a necessity. To form an intelligent policy response, it is important to understand how much offshore drilling contributes to our energy supply and whether there are other less costly alternatives to meeting our energy needs.

Before the recent economic recession, the United States consumed roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day (mbd) on average, up from about 16 mbd in 1990 (U.S. Energy Information Administration-EIA). U.S. oil production, meanwhile, peaked about 1970 at approximately 10 mbd, and has been declining ever since—to about 5 mbd at present. As a result of these opposing trends, the United States now imports about 60 percent of our total oil consumption.

Meanwhile, U.S. offshore production, mostly in the Gulf of Mexico, has been increasing—from about 1 mbd in 1990 to about 2 mbd today. EIA projects that offshore production could increase up to 3 mbd by 2035—and help stem the long-term decline in U.S. oil production. Still, potential offshore production, while significant, would contribute only 10-15 percent of current U.S. oil consumption.

In addition, offshore drilling is a costly way to get oil, in direct dollars as well as environmental risks. The average cost of finding and extracting U.S. offshore oil exceeds $70 per barrel, compared to the cost of land-based drilling—foreign and domestic—which ranges from roughly $10 to $40 per barrel (EIA). Offshore costs are likely to rise as drilling moves to deeper and deeper waters, making offshore oil less competitive as costs of other alternatives such as efficiency, biofuels, and renewable electricity decline. Offshore drilling is also projected to have a minimal effect on gasoline prices. According to EIA, opening more offshore areas to oil drilling would have a slight dampening effect on oil prices, but as prices are set globally, the United States will still be subject to larger volatility and price spikes of the world market. Independence from imported oil, it seems, depends on freedom from all oil.

Given these limitations, what could the United States do to replace current and future offshore oil production (2-3 mbd) and reduce our overall oil dependence? The most sensible option would be to invest in using less. Cars and trucks account for about 11-12 mbd of U.S. oil consumption. A 2008 MIT study found that improvements in vehicle efficiency alone could reduce automotive fuel consumption by 30-50 percent, or 3-6 mbd, by 2035. That scenario is based on improvements to internal combustion and hybrid engines, and does not even include switching to plug-in electric vehicles, biofuels, fuel cells, natural gas, or other alternative fuels. Estimated costs for these improvements ranged from $1500-4500 per vehicle, depending on model.

Vehicle efficiency improvements could be combined with modest land use and transportation planning policies that would curb the growth in the number of miles traveled by cars and trucks each year. More aggressive policies, as described by a recent report by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), could further reduce U.S. dependence on oil. An integrated suite of measures applied nationwide could reduce fuel consumption by passenger vehicles up to 25 percent or about 2 mbd by 2030, according to the DOT report. Many measures would save more money than they would cost. U.S. biofuels production, meanwhile, is approaching 1 mbd and is mandated to reach roughly 2 mbd by 2022.

A common refrain is that we need to pursue all these options in addition to offshore drilling, but the point here is that all options are NOT created equal. A sane policy would pursue the most cost-effective and benign options first and most aggressively, and leave the high-cost options as a last resort. The costs associated with the alternatives noted above are not insignificant, but there are also substantial benefits—in terms of fuel savings, energy security, air quality, and public health benefits—let alone avoided risks of offshore drilling (a National Research Council report, examined in a recent EESI briefing, found billions of dollars in annual health savings and benefits alone).

If Americans could turn back the clock and make a choice among these options before the recent spill, how would they choose? Sadly, it is too late to reverse the past, but what would be the wisest choice for the future?

The graphic images of the oil spill are a stark reminder to both political parties that our current energy system is broken. Congress, supported by business, holds the keys to fixing it. Now is the time to move forward on climate and energy legislation. As Obama said in a speech yesterday, “the only way the transition to clean energy will succeed is if the private sector is fully invested in this future – if capital comes off the sidelines and the ingenuity of our entrepreneurs is unleashed. And the only way to do that is by finally putting a price on carbon pollution.”

The best way to start moving to a clean energy economy is undoubtedly through a sustained carbon price. The draft American Power Act, sponsored by Senators Kerry and Lieberman, is a good place to start and offers the Senate a chance to lead. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised to meet with senators next week to discuss moving climate and energy legislation forward and President Obama committed to do whatever he can in the coming weeks to find the votes for a bill’s passage. There is no single more important response to the spill now than for the Senate to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation.

The Senate should follow Obama’s lead in this difficult time and show future generations of Americans that they care about this tragedy by putting the country on a path to a safe, clean energy economy. Working constructively together on comprehensive climate and energy legislation, starting today, will prove their dedication.

If there can only be one lesson gleaned from the oil spill disaster in the Gulf, it is that our current energy policy, with its emphasis on fossil fuels over renewables, is in drastic need of reform. For many Americans, especially those who may not remember the Exxon Valdez spill of the late ‘80s, this is the first time that the devastating effects of our dependence on fossil fuels has been displayed in such stark terms. The images that continue to pour out of the Gulf region are no doubt heartbreaking, but they should also serve as a cautionary tale of the environmental degradation that will invariably continue if our increasing appetite for oil is not satiated. Without concrete changes, the U.S. will increase its consumption of petroleum by nearly 50 percent over the next few decades. This will further deplete domestic and global energy supplies and continue to put our national security and our children’s economic future at risk. We currently spend more than 90 billion dollars every year to protect the supply and transit of oil from the Persian Gulf. What’s more, imported oil accounted for more than half – nearly 54 percent – of the total U.S. trade deficit in 2009 ($204 billion of $380.7 billion), sending tens of billions of dollars out of the country. Clearly, there is no economic sense in continuing our addiction to fossil fuels.

Paradoxically, despite its exorbitant profits, the fossil fuel industry is heavily subsidized by the federal government. According to an Environmental Law Institute study, between 2002-08 fossil fuel interests received $72 billion in U.S. energy subsidies compared to a mere $12 billion given to the renewable energy industry, $2 billion of which was allocated for solar. Without a radical shift in the way energy subsidies are doled out in this country, how can we be sure that another Deepwater Horizon or Exxon Valdez disaster won’t happen again?

While President Obama’s decision to extend the moratorium on new deepwater drilling for another six months is an encouraging sign that the Administration is finally waking up to the risks associated with a fossil fuel-centric economy, this edict is akin to putting a band-aid on a much more systemic problem: an energy system that is in serious need of an overhaul.

To address this issue, we need to begin by making a serious national commitment to renewable energy, centered around a federal renewable electricity standard (RES) with teeth—Applied Materials supports a target of getting 25 percent of our domestic electricity needs from renewables by 2025. We also need to invest more in renewable energy technologies and R&D so that we can remain competitive in the clean tech race with countries like China. We need to expand the manufacturing tax credit and make it permanent to encourage corporate investment in energy technology capacity. And, finally, we need a price on carbon so that the true costs of fossil fuels are accounted for, including health and environmental externalities, which are not reflected in the current price of carbon-based fuels.

Senate Majority Leader Reid has vowed to takes these issues into consideration as he determines how to move on energy legislation when Congress returns from the Memorial Day recess. Overdependence on fossil foils, especially oil, has not been a sustainable approach to fixing our energy mess for decades, which is especially evident today; it is about time we rip off the proverbial band-aid for good and get serious.

The history of environmental policy in the U.S. has often been affected by frightening events at specific sites—think Love Canal and the Cuyahoga River on fire. While it is, of course, difficult to predict the long term impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill while we are still in the midst of the crisis itself, it is already more far-reaching than any past environmental disaster and should cause us to re-evaluate our dependence upon oil and our inadequate stewardship of the Gulf of Mexico’s exceptional resources.

My organization, The Nature Conservancy, has historically taken a neutral position on oil drilling in general, but rather has focused on evaluating the impacts of drilling at specific sites. While we have never worked with oil and gas companies on the siting of oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, in Latin America and in the Rocky Mountain west, we have provided information to oil companies and government agencies to identify biologically important areas where drilling should be avoided and to select places where government-ordered mitigation for ecological impacts can be most effective.

But the ongoing Deepwater Horizons spill has changed our view of the hazards of offshore drilling, so the Conservancy has endorsed the Obama Administration’s appointment of a high level panel to investigate the causes, impacts and implications of the spill, and in a letter to Secretary Salazar last week, we supported the suspension of drilling in frontier areas at the very least until the Graham-Riley commission’s work is complete and its findings are presented. As I have written here over the last month, it is now clear that the increasing scarcity and the accompanying increased value of oil is driving exploration in places with higher risks that require much more assessment.

Viewed more broadly, however, the Deepwater Horizons spill and its impacts, along with the increasingly grave signs of global climate change, are a powerful message that it is simply time to move to more secure and lower carbon sources of energy and that we must do so as quickly as possible. Comprehensive energy and climate legislation are pending in the U.S. Senate; what other disasters are required to convince us that such legislation is an essential foundation for a safer and more economically secure future for our children? I understand that we are not going to change our dependence on oil immediately, but now is the time to take decisive action to make the change to a low-carbon economy by swift passage by the Senate of the climate and energy bills.

The Nature Conservancy has conserved land along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico for decades. We have helped to save hundreds of thousands of acres of beaches, coastal wetlands, and river corridors. We know first-hand the immense ecological value of these places. Today, we are engaged in the restoration of oyster reefs, sea grass beds and marshlands in the Gulf. It breaks my heart to see these places threatened by the spill.

I think about the Mississippi artist, Walter Anderson, who, in the 1950s and 60s camped out on Horn Island off the Mississippi coast for weeks at a time painting herons and crabs and pelicans—trying to capture and convey the life of the Gulf in his art because he saw natural areas so threatened by a changing world. People should have listened to Anderson then and should listen to the message of the Deepwater Horizon spill now. It is time both to better assess the risks of oil drilling and other threats to the Gulf of Mexico today and long past time for a far more comprehensive effort to restore the Gulf of Mexico’s natural systems from the damage done by our collective lack of respect for the Gulf’s unique natural systems.

The Deepwater Horizon accident was unprecedented, and the response has been massive. Thousands of engineers, scientists, wildlife experts, and residents from Gulf Coast communities are working around the clock to stanch the oil leaks and mitigate the impact of the spill. While investigators work to identify the causes of the accident, it's critically important that the administration and Congress consider some basic facts before enacting new policies and regulations.

BP already has stated that it will pay for all legitimate claims arising from the spill. American taxpayers will not be expected to pay for plugging the leaking well, the spill cleanup, or any of the damages resulting from the spill.

We understand and share the concerns and frustrations of everyone watching the results of this tragic accident. But the wrong policy changes could reduce U.S. oil and natural gas production, result in layoffs of thousands of energy workers, and harm the very Gulf Coast communities that are reeling from the spill's impact on fishing and tourism. Postponing exploration projects and cancelling lease sales also could reduce government revenue by billions of dollars and erode the nation's energy and economic security.

Altering the liability cap on the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund could force small and mid-sized energy companies out of the market, relegating U.S. offshore production only to large, self-insured companies and nationally-owned or operated companies from other countries. The U.S. oil and natural gas industry supports 9.2 million workers, 170,000 of whom work in the Gulf. With the official U.S. unemployment rate at 9.9 percent, this is not the time to jeopardize U.S. energy jobs or harm the economy.

The tragic Gulf accident doesn't change the reality that demand for energy is growing. This country will need more oil and natural gas to meet the demand in coming decades. The oil and natural gas industry has redoubled its commitment to safe and reliable offshore operations. We urge policymakers to be careful in their approach so new policies won't have unintended consequences for the nation.

For forty Presidents -- including both Bush's -- promised an end to our addiction to foreign oil, for energy independence. For forty years the smart energy analysts said, "No way, Jose, we can't do it." And the false starts over synthetic fuels suggested they were right.

But the world has changed. We are on the verge of being able to power our cars with electricity, our trucks with newly abundant natural gas, and we can sure produce enough sustainable biofuels for our essential aviation needs. There's no need to import diesel for railroads which run better on kilowatts, and investing in freight and passenger rail can dramatically improve the efficiency of our transportation networks.

Yes, because it takes time for vehicle fleets to turn over, the transition away from oil will take time -- even if we push hard the journey is a matter of two decades. But the end point is determined by when we begin -- we are in control of our own dependence on oil, and a decision now to start moving beyond it means that in twenty years we won't need it anymore -- and in between we can begin to phase our our most dangerous dependence -- on deep-off shore, dirty tar sands and hostile foreign sources.

Those who say only, "it will take a long time" rarely couple that truism with the deeper truth, "so begin today." But we can, and we must act now-- not just for the Gulf, or the Arctic ocean, not just for our young men and women at risk in oil wars in the Middle East -- but for our national future.

We all know that sometime in the next twenty years there will be a major disruption of oil supply and demand -- oil prices will spike. What do we think we will do when oil hits $200, $300 a barrel if we are still using 19 million barrels a day -- barrels we could replace with cleaner, safer, cheaper forms of transportation?

What is our contingency plan for that moment -- which could come this year or next? How foolish will we look and feel if we squander this moment!

Earlier I inadvertently posted comments attributed to Brian Wynne, president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, but they weren’t made by Wynne. We’ve since deleted them, and we’re sorry for the error.

Judi Greenwald, Vice President for Innovative Solutions at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, has written the below response in place of Eileen Claussen.

It will probably take some time to fully understand what went wrong in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and what ought to be done to make sure it doesn’t happen again. But at least one thing is already perfectly clear: recent technological advances in extracting oil in deep water offshore have been dramatic, whereas unfortunately the same cannot be said for technological advances in spill prevention and cleanup techniques.

Why is this the case? Innovation is complicated, but we do know something about it. In the private sector, the profit motive is a primary driver of innovation. Because of the world’s seemingly insatiable demand for petroleum products (mainly gasoline and diesel), oil companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in offshore drilling technology (just one company, GE Oil & Gas, reported offshore oil and gas drilling-related R&D spending of $150 million from 2009-2011)in order to reap tens of billions in proceeds from fuel sales (for fiscal year 2009, MMS reported oil production worth $20.2 billion from the Gulf of Mexico federal outer continental shelf). According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), oil production from federal offshore areas accounted for 29 percent of total domestic oil production in 2009. In 2009, ultra-deepwater offshore drilling (drilling in more than 5,000 feet of water) accounted for about a third of total federal offshore oil production, and ultra-deepwater production tripled from 2005 to 2009. Until recently there has been no comparable incentive for spill prevention and cleanup techniques: the pre-Deepwater Horizon spill record had been excellent, lulling both regulators and oil companies into complacency.

The free market by itself cannot motivate investment in spill prevention and cleanup technology, because spills themselves yield public damage, not private profits. Our government, on behalf of the public interest, could have put rules in place that would have motivated the private sector to make such investments – such as requiring oil companies to actually demonstrate that spill prevention technology works as a condition for obtaining drilling rights.

We have an analogous situation with respect to energy security and climate change. The free market by itself is driving innovation, but in the wrong things: in energy investments that are warming the climate and making us ever more dependent on foreign oil. We need our government to intervene on behalf of the public interest to motivate private investment and innovation in clean energy, through comprehensive energy and climate legislation.

The catastrophe in the Gulf is still unfolding, and will ultimately provide many lessons relevant to our energy and environmental future. But one lesson we can take to heart and act on right away is that there is a profound public interest in spurring innovation in clean and safe energy and that the private market on its own will not adequately provide it. It is our job as the public to demand it, and it is our government’s job to use all the tools at its disposal – from regulations to incentives to penalties – to make it happen.

Until we can review a complete assessment of the cause of this tragic accident, imposing a six month moratorium on deepwater drilling is a prudent step. More information can help us understand whether this was a “black swan” event, errors in judgment, or something systemic -- in which case there needs to be major changes in regulations and risk management procedures.

Leasing off the Virginia coast was not scheduled until 2011 or 2012, so the President’s decision to cancel it is more about image than real action. Since there is no evidence that drilling in the Arctic cannot proceed safely, extending that moratorium also looks to be driven by politics.

There have been over 14,000 deepwater wells drilled around the world and, according to MMS data, over 50,000 offshore wells successfully drilled in US waters since the last production accident in 1969. The data make it clear that offshore exploration and production can be done safely and that the industry has achieved a standard of excellence.

The proper response to this tragedy is not to walk away from the development of our hydrocarbon resources anymore than 50,000 highway deaths each year should lead to a ban on driving. Government and the petroleum industry should engage in the hard work of developing new standards, procedures, and equipment to further reduce the risk of another catastrophic accident.

Obvious actions that need to be taken have emerged based on the partial information that has become available in the last several weeks. However, no one should be under the illusion that the “facts” that have been reported to date are sufficient for making policy decisions. It is well known that in crises, first reports are rarely right and second ones are usually incomplete too. We need to turn down the rhetoric and turn up the effort to collect all of the facts and carefully assess them.

The ability to drill a mile below the surface is evidence of tremendous advances in drilling technology over the last two decades. But, it is just as evident that advances in clean up technology have not kept pace. And as such, that area needs aggressive research.

If Congress uses this spill to force through radical legislation such as Kerry-Lieberman, it will not have learned the lessons of the spill but will simply have used a tragic accident as a tool to overreact. The type of polices under consideration by the Senate cannot survive on their own merits and if passed will do more harm than good. In particular, the 2020 emission goal cannot be achieved without serious damage to the economy or the large use of offsets (modern-day indulgences to absolve sinners).

Actions have consequences. And the Senate ought to spend more time understanding them instead of pushing solutions that are based energy, technology, and economic illusions.

No technology exists that is abundant and cost competitive enough to rapidly replace the 256 million cars currently on the road. A government mandate to retire them on a rapid schedule would force buyers to pay higher prices -- perhaps several thousand dollars per vehicle -- or would involve large tax credits which would make our fiscal problem even worse.

We use about 19 million barrels of oil each day. The amount that will be used in 2020 is about the same according to EIA. Holding oil use relatively constant with a growing population and economy reflects great progress in energy efficiency. We should produce as much of that oil domestically as possible because that will create high paying jobs here and will improve our energy security. In the meantime, we should strengthen R&D programs that can hasten the day when low or no carbon alternatives will be cost competitive.

That day is not soon. And the sooner we understand that, the better.

There is no doubt that this massive oil spill will have long term impacts on the energy industry. It is symbolic in many ways. One of the most important is as a symbol that those who claimed peak oil was not a problem are just plain wrong. A major part of their argument has been that we can always go into deeper water and into more difficult places to find the next oil finds. Well, it seems that this argument is becoming a lot weaker. The deeper we go the riskier oil exploration and production can get.

The same holds for moving into more difficult places to find and produce oil, such as the Arctic. I was up in the Arctic a few days ago. It is cold, but it also has a beauty that is really to marvel at. Just south of the area in Norway where I was visiting an energy facility is one of the biggest codfish grounds in the world. Now imagine the impact of having an oil spill like this in the Arctic or Norway and having it move southward to the fishing grounds. It would bring fisherman and others to tears, like those being shed in the Gulf of Mexico these days.

However, after meeting with some of the energy people in Norway I came away with a much more comfortable feeling about their competence and their ability to handle risk and difficult environments than I have felt about many others. Norway takes its environment seriously. It also treats its energy industry as an integral part of its environment policy.

How about that? There is a small country in the northwest of Europe that could teach us a lot about energy and environment policy. Are there any Senators and Congressmen listening? I hope so, but for some reason I doubt it.

I also found out in this recent trip that many countries in the EU are way ahead of us in many more ways than I previously thought when it comes to energy and environment policy. The French and EDF are way ahead of us on the development of nuclear power and in many aspects of energy incentives policies that connect with the environment. There are many towns and cities in the EU that are focusing a lot on renewable energy. Public transportation systems are far superior in many ways to what I have seen here, especially when you think of reliability, convenience, and energy efficiency. Think of the brilliant rail systems in Switzerland, France, and, yes, even in Norway.

We need to wake up, look at the mirror, and realize that we are seeing the reflection of an old Buick energy system in the backyard. We need to look forward and not doodle and doddle much longer in political games. The costs to national energy and environmental security could be way too high.

Many of my colleagues are convinced that we don’t wake up unless there is a crisis. However, there is a crisis. This is a massive catastrophe. By the way, how many of you have been hearing about how the fish are drinking in and eating the oil. How long will the fish live contaminated? Who knows? How long will the sea grasses have problems? How long will the shell fish be contaminated once hit with the oil? What about those deep water oil plumes? If they are really out there, and some denies this, then we have real serious long term implications from this oil flowing around deep water currents for maybe years. Deep water oil does not break up the same way as shallow oil does.

So the price of a barrel of oil for BP just went through the ceiling. They may need to sell off parts of the company to help pay for these massive costs of cleanup, law suits and more. Now there is a change from the swagger of the past.

BP might also become a much better company and be one of the vanguards leading us to a new sustainable and environmentally sound future, but right now that would be the re-branding job of the century. However, such re-branding might be needed for the long term survival of the company given what it is going through.

One should expect more pressure to be on for the development of renewable energy and more environmentally sustainable energy technologies. However, there still remain a large group of the powerful who still think that energy use has nothing to do with climate change and that such oil spills will simply disappear over time and “be happy, don’t worry, just fill up that H2”. Some people will not change their thinking at all even after such a disaster. “Well, this is just a long tail event and it is not going to happen again for another 100 years.” Right. “The oil companies and the government can make the oil industry safer and cleaner.” Maybe they can. We need the oil. Therefore, we need the oil companies. We also need to find a better energy and environment future. So what is the plan with the oil companies? We should not just hammer them. We need to work with them.

This will not be the case unless there are the right incentives to do these things, the right mechanisms and organizations to monitor and punish those who don’t follow the rules, and if the leadership has a vision for the future of the oil industry in the long run that will lead to better methods and means of getting the oil out in a safe and sustainable way. I can hope for this, but I am not exactly holding my breath.

However, let us not forget at the same time that there are many very well run oil companies who have not had such issues and one could wonder: why? There are some truly gifted and technically savvy people in the oil industry. They will be part of the better pathway to our energy future.

Sure we need the oil from the Gulf. zSure we will need oil from many parts of the world. We will also need to find and produce that oil in much more difficult and more costly places to get it out. We will also need to use far more complex technologies to get the oil out. Real leadership is needed to make the right decisions on these issues in the industry, in the government, and, here is the kicker, amongst the people who vote in our leaders.

There will be a lot of hemming and hawing about the oil spill for a few months after it is over for some, and a few years for others. But my guess is that if our leaders, both in the private sector and the government, do not get on the ball and start working toward more sustainable energy and environmental policies then we will fall right back into the lazy path of kicking the can down the road until the road gets too steep again.

The spill might effect the elections coming up in the areas affected. However, the most important issue for Americans still remains job, jobs, and more jobs. This is a mostly jobless recovery and that is what will determine the elections in many places, especially those most hard hit in the mid-west and the southeast. People are still losing their homes and still losing jobs. People are taking jobs that pay less than the jobs they had before.

Should the people who worry about their job and homes also be worried about the oil spill and the oil industry? To quote a famous Alaskan thought leader: “You betcha!” As we approach the energy transitions that will be required, and from what I have seen we are about 20 years behind the EU on this, there will be potentially significant employment and income effects due to our negligence and nonfeasance when it comes to energy and environmental leadership. We all should be worried when the energy and environment bills of the future land in our mailboxes in the form of lost jobs, higher taxes, inflation and, possibly, even more.

It is the classic economist’s haiku: pay now or pay later. It will be more expensive later in so many ways. Our short-term thinking leadership just does not know how much just yet.

The oil spill is a potential game changer.

Unfortunately, in the short run, the spill probably complicates the math of getting to 60 votes on the Kerry-Lieberman bill. It’s never good to legislate during a crisis – and it’s even worse in an election year. The notion of increased off-shore drilling appealed to Senator Lindsay Graham as a sweetener for attracting support from a broader set of Republican Senators – as well as some moderate Democrats from energy producing states. It is hard to imagine that many Senators would want to line up in favor of a vote on offshore drilling this summer. Even with tighter regulations of environmental protection and safety in drilling, the oil spill has revived concerns amongst several progressive Democrats (Menendez, Nelson, Lautenberg) about any increases in offshore access.

But I think in the longer term, it is going to motivate more Senators to step forward to support clean energy legislation. In the wake of this disaster, the federal policy response cannot be doing nothing. The disaster highlights the need to further diversify our energy mix away from oil. It is also creating public support for a stronger EPA – right at a time when EPA is beginning to issue climate regulations on large sources. I don’t think Congress will have the appetite for weakening EPA’s regulatory tools in a time of crisis. But it could provide a new climate law that allows EPA to regulate it with market-based solutions. Kerry and Lieberman are absolutely right that the Senate needs to address climate change legislatively rather than leaving EPA to regulate under existing authorities. We need rules of the road for our energy and environmental future, so that companies can start to invest again in cleaner energy production.

Our predicament is finally sinking-in with voters: if we do nothing, we’re left with a national energy strategy that is weak, reliant on ever-increasing supplies of oil imports and full of uncertainy for the energy industry. The potential for growth in domestic oil production is largely in offshore resources that carry high environmental risks that we now appreciate. The potential for growth in clean electricity generation is constrained by unclear federal greenhouse gas policy.

It’s time for a new strategy. If we push for a clean energy future, we can meet our energy needs sustainably – and we can protect our climate.

If the Kerry-Lieberman effort falters this summer, it’s time to prepare for a strong start next year. Energy and climate reforms should be Agenda Item Number 1 in 2011. And next time, President Obama must step forward with the Administration’s plan and push it hard on the Hill. Its way early to talk about the Obama legacy on energy – but one thing is certain: he won’t want to be remembered for presiding over a disaster response without setting in place a comprehensive national energy and climate strategy.

The BP oil disaster is the biggest American environmental catastrophe in history. Americans watch helplessly as millions of gallons of oil gush from the ocean floor every day, causing a growing stain that now covers up to 9,100 square miles and is beginning to contaminate our shores.

Americans are intently focused on the BP disaster, and overwhelmingly favor solutions to reduce oil use. A May 20-23 survey by the Pew Research Center found that “Americans stayed focused on the unfolding oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last week, while the effort to cap the underwater well and limit the damage was one of two stories that dominated media coverage.” Nearly half of the respondents named it as the “story as most closely followed,” with the economy next at 15 percent.

Americans understand that the unfolding catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico is but one symptom of our oil dependence, and we need an aggressive transition to cleaner energy. A May 6-9 IPSO/McClatchy poll found Americans have much stronger support for investments in renewable energy research and “spending more on subway, rail and bus systems” than more offshore oil drilling.

The public is hungry for a direct, bold response to the oil disaster -- one that clearly reduces American dependence on all oil, regardless of origin. President Obama and Congress should dramatically cut our oil dependence by adopting administrative and legislative measures that increase vehicle efficiency, raise revenue to invest in cleaner alternative fuels and transit, provide additional environmental safeguards for oil and gas production as well as real accountability for bad actors.

An oil reform agenda could include the following measures, many of which the administration has the authority to adopt, or are already introduced as separate bills in Congress.

• Raise the liability limit for offshore oil disasters
• Adopt rig safety measures, including requirements for all blowout preventers to be certified, stronger well control, tougher inspections, and expanded safety and training programs for rig workers. These were recommendations by the Department of Interior to President Obama
• Establish a 7 million barrel per day oil reduction target for 2030, with interim reductions required
• Empower the President to implement measures to reach these goals
• Significantly reduce oil use from vehicles by establishing at least a 40 MPG by 2020 fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks. Establish the first fuel economy standards for trucks
• Power trucks and buses with natural gas by enacting the NAT GAS Act
• Power cars with electricity by enacting the Electric Drive Vehicle Deployment Act
• Eliminate taxpayer subsides that benefit big oil companies
• Invoke the Trade Expansion Act to levy a fee on imported oil, as President Gerald Ford did in 1975
• Use revenue from this fee to invest in public transit, high speed rail, and incentives for electric and natural gas vehicles

The oil calamity in the Gulf of Mexico has also shifted public support towards environmental protection and away from oil and coal production according to a new poll by Gallup. Its pollster Jeffrey M. Jones determined that

The recent oil spill has spurred a significant shift in Americans' environmental attitudes. For the last few years, Americans' environmental concerns declined as the public placed a higher priority on pocketbook concerns like the economy and energy, likely due to the poor U.S. economy. However, in just two months' time, that trend has reversed, and the pro-environment position has regained the strength it showed for most of the last decade.

The transition to a clean energy economy and reduction in oil use will benefit all Americans. It would save families money, enhance national security, create jobs, and protect public health by making pollution reductions.

The horrible BP oil disaster has reminded Americans that we must reduce our oil use. The tragic events in the Gulf presents an unprecedented opportunity to take bold action to achieve this goal, and elected officials that do so will receive support and thanks from their constituents.

The BP oil disaster in the Gulf, which gets uglier every day with continued environmental damage and revelations of previous bad behavior, will finally change the way Congress thinks about offshore oil drilling. It will be a catalyst for more renewable forms of energy production. The current Kerry-Lieberman climate bill, which seeks expanded offshore oil drilling, is dead.

Congress will also continue to investigate and reform the Department of the Interior. Liz Birnbaum was merely a scapegoat for a much deeper problem. Questions of why environment protection corners were cut at Interior before the blow out and spill, and then incredibly continued after the initial set of gross negligence actions by both Interior and BP, will haunt Secretary Salazar for a long time.

This historic environmental disaster can be a national learning moment. The first lesson, to borrow a phrase from Ronald Reagan, is to trust but verify. No one ever again will underestimate the difficulties of dealing with a deep-water well accident. But the record shows that BP has had more than its share of ocean well accidents; and when it represented that it could handle all contingencies, federal regulators took the company at its word. The administration should examine the industry’s best practices for addressing serious accidents and apply new, stricter standards and rules to everyone. And the administration’s moratorium on new deepwater wells should remain in place until those new standards and rules are in place, and we are certain that future accidents will be handled much more quickly and effectively.

Whether we like it or not, oil and gas will play dominant roles in our energy mix for years to come, and the only way to safely secure the domestic energy we know we will need is to accelerate the development and application of new technologies and methods for its exploration and recovery. The second lesson, then, is to invest the resources required to improve the ways we recover domestic oil and gas from a variety of sources, from shale and tar sands to shallow and deep water wells. And third, looking further to the future, the administration needs to accelerate the country’s transition to alternative energy sources by building a national consensus for a serious climate program. The best candidate is to put in place a new fee on energy based on its carbon content and use the revenues to cut the payroll tax rate, thereby creating new jobs and protecting the incomes of most households.

Polls show that, at least for now, the American public doesn’t blame the administration for the accident or the unsuccessful attempts to address it. The public’s patience will be exhausted, however, if it takes BP and Washington another two months to stop the spill, and the environmental and economic costs continue to spiral upwards almost without limit. In that case, the old and often-ignored axiom, that good politics rests on good policy, would apply: Voters, especially outside the Gulf, will reward politicians who demonstrate that they’re capable of learning and applying serious lessons from this disaster – namely, by developing and putting in place strict new standards and rules for ocean drilling, by investing in a variety of new ways to recover more domestic oil and gas, and by creating the necessary political consensus for a climate program that gradually will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.