Senator Clinton Has Been Listening to Thomas Friedman

From her recent HillCast it’s easy to see that Senator Clinton has been listening to New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman’s call for a great national effort to build a better energy future for ourselves. In his wonderful book The World is Flat, Friedman writes:

When we got hit with 9/11, it was a once-in-a-generation opportunity to summon the nation to sacrifice, to address some of its pressing fiscal, energy, science and education shortfalls–all the things that we had let slide. But our president did not summon us to sacrifice. He summoned us to go shopping…

President Kennedy understood that the competition with the Soviet Union was not a space race but a science race, which was really an education race. Yet the way he chose to get Americans excited about sacrificing and buckling down to do what it took to win the Cold War–which required a large-scale push in science and engineering–was by laying out the vision of putting a man on the moon, not a missile into Moscow

If President Bush is looking for a similar legacy project, there is one just crying out–a national science initiative that would be our generation’s moon shot: a crash program for alternative energy and conservation to make America energy-independent in ten years. If President Bush made energy independence his moon shot, in one fell swoop he would dry up revenue for terrorism, force Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia onto the path to reform–which they will never do with $60-a-barrel oil–strengthen the dollar, and improve his own standing in Europe by doing something huge to reduce global warming. He would also create a real magnet to inspire young people to contribute to both the war on terrorism and America’s future by again becoming scientists, engineers, and mathematicians.

It sure sounds like Senator Clinton is singing his song. She even compared her energy initiative to the Apollo moonshot, which seemed like a direct hat tip to Friedman. I definitely agree with her approach to the important issues of energy independence and global warming. She wants to create a Strategic Energy Fund (SEF), and she says she can do it without raising taxes. How? Make oil companies “play or pay” by either investing in R&D for clean, renewable, home grown energy, or pay heavily out of their windfall profits into the SEF. Combined with cuts to subsidies for oil companies, she says that this policy will generate $50 billion over the next ten years. I think it’s a good idea by and large, but I do wonder whether her projections for taxes on oil companies’ windfall profits are a bit optimistic. Where is she getting $50 billion? Has anyone else backed that up?

What I like is that her approach to global warming makes as much economic sense as it does environmental sense. It treats clean energy investments as a move toward energy independence first, rather than making reduced carbon emissions all-important. It’s not that reduced carbon emissions aren’t important, but we have to balance the needs of the economy with the needs of the environment. Senator Clinton’s plan seems to make sense for both, although I’ll have to do a bit more research and hear other points of view on the issue before I decide fully. I’d love some reader input here, guys. What are your thoughts about Senator Clinton’s Strategic Energy Fund plan?