Get Real On Energy

by the editors

You don’t have to read the Wall Street Journal or thick economic tomes to understand that our addiction to foreign oil is coming home to roost. Just look at the flashing lights on the pump the next time you fill up your car.

The surge in crude oil prices is pinching pocketbooks and in the process accelerating the economic slowdown, threatening more job losses and hurting the Americans who can least afford it.

As groups like the American Jewish Committee frequently note, our energy dependence also threatens to undermine U.S. Mideast policy and hurt our key ally in the region, Israel. How can we press the Gulf states to start playing a constructive role in Mideast peacemaking and stop supporting anti-Israel, anti-American terrorists when

we are forced to approach them as desperate supplicants begging for increased oil production and a lid on prices?

Sadly, most of what we are hearing from our presidential candidates is puffery and pandering, exemplified by the nonsensical fight over a federal gas tax holiday over the summer. Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. John McCain have cynically latched on to the proposal, which in fact will just provide a brief illusion of relief while doing nothing to curb consumption or jump-start research into energy alternatives.

There are no simple answers; every practical solution demands sacrifices from all of us, from the corporations that must invest far more heavily in energy research and development to individuals who will inevitably have to change their consumption habits and maybe their lifestyles. Real solutions demand the kind of creativity and innovation that made our nation what it is today, not campaign slogans and empty ideology.

Memo to candidates in both parties: it’s time to get real about energy. The American people can face up to the stark reality that if we fail to take serious action today, we risk our prosperity and our international standing in the not-too-distant tomorrow. A politics-as-usual approach can only deepen a crisis that threatens so much of what we hold dear.

Westchester Jewish Conference

Westchester’s Jewish Community Relations Organization