DOES AMERICA NEED A NATIONAL ENERGY POLICY?
By Stuart Pigler

Our country needs a national energy policy enacted as soon as possible. If Congress fails to act on a policy, energy prices will continue to rise. For two decades, the share of the average family budget spent on energy steadily declined. But since 1998, it as skyrocketed by 25 percent and that's a hardship for every family.

If Congress fails to act, our country will become more reliant on foreign crude oil currently pegged at 56 percent, putting our national energy security into the hands of foreign nations, some of who do not share our interests. Our environment will suffer, as government officials struggle to prevent blackouts that could happen this summer by calling on more polluting emergency backup generators and by running less efficient power plants.

I am pleased that United States Secretary of Energy, Spencer Abraham has developed a plan for President Bush to move our country into a sound energy strategy that will benefit us well into the 21st century. The plan addresses all three key aspects of the energy equation: demand, supply, and the means to match them. First, it reduces demand by promoting innovation and technology to make us the world leader in efficiency and conservation. Second, it expands and diversifies America's supply of all sources of energy-oil and gas, clean coal, solar, wind, biomass, hydropower, and other renewables, as well as safe and clean nuclear power. Lastly, the plan outlines ways to bring producers and consumers together by modernizing the networks of pipes and wires that link the power plant to the outlet on the wall.

Hopefully another aspect of energy can be explored as a part of an energy plan-- drilling in the Alaska Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The federal government should allow drilling in the coastal plain on the northern edge of the ANWR. The refuge itself, which got special protection in the late 1970's, is enormous--19.6 million acres to be exact. Thanks to advances in technology, fewer than 2,000 acres would be affected by oil development and that is less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the ANWR.

America must put into place a long-term national energy policy that includes finding and producing more of its own resources. It's not in the national interests of this country to continue to depend on unreliable energy sources-some of which are actually our enemies. At the time of this writing, we import about 750,000 barrels of oil a day from Iraq.

There are some environmental activists who oppose oil development in the ANWR. The fact is Alaska's North Slope is a great place to look for oil. It has supplied 20 percent of America's domestic oil for the past 20 years. The largest oil fields in America are found there, including our largest and second largest, Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk. Our most promising prospects for oil is along that northern edge of ANWR. These environmental activists are opposed because they believe oil development might harm the caribou herd and other wildlife. They have based their case on 99 percent fact-free rhetoric. I believe in the judgment of those who have spent their lives studying and finding oil fields.

I hope Congress will open up the ANWR for the benefit to Alaskans who support it, and most importantly, for the nation that needs it.

Stuart Pigler is a member of the National Advisory Council of the African-American leadership network Project 21 and a former television commentator in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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