Innovation, not lip service, will cure our oil addiction

The President's State of the Union address covered a lot of topics, but one section of the speech literally left me stunned. I am referring to his miraculous flip-flop on "energy independence" and America's oil habit.

Doesn't George Bush realize he has been America's No. 1 petroleum cheerleader? Just last summer, he signed an energy bill that gave away billions in taxpayer money to oil companies that are currently enjoying record-breaking profits. Since he took office, finding innovative strategies in his energy proposals has been as hard as finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq!

When it comes to energy, the priorities of this administration and the Republican-led Congress have been upside-down. And true to form, one day after the president paid lip service to energy alternatives, his Energy Department was making cuts in alternative-fuel research and his energy secretary was telling the press and the Saudis that the president didn't really mean what he said.

I wish the president had meant what he said, because he was right: We are addicted to oil and our addiction poses a severe threat to our national security, our environment and our economy. People suffering from an addiction do absurd, even self-destructive things to feed it, and it is no different with the U.S. addiction to oil.

Why else would we send our hard-earned money overseas to authoritarian regimes that support terrorism and deny democracy to their citizens? Why else would we continue to ignore the science on global warming, jeopardizing the stability of our climate and our relationships with our allies? And why, if we are not addicted, do we continue to buy ever more oil even as prices rise, endangering our economy and standard of living in the process? That's what addicts do: They pay any price to get their fix.

Even if we had enough domestic oil to meet our needs (and we do not), drilling would not address these issues. As long as Americans demand huge quantities of oil, authoritarian governments will continue to benefit from global prices kept high by our demand, the environment will continue to suffer, and the economy will remain vulnerable. Furthermore, American industry will fall further behind more innovative foreign competitors who are serious about developing alternatives. The only answer to these issues is to get serious about reducing our demand for oil.

So let's innovate. We Americans are good at that, especially when we have a clear goal. But instead of lip service, we need a real plan to mobilize the creativity of our nation and forge a new path. In the process, we will open the door to a vibrant new economy. Investments in alternative-energy technologies will produce new industries and family-wage jobs, and there are many ways to build on existing strengths right here in the Northwest. For example:

• Create incentives for our local heavy-truck industry to design more-efficient vehicles.

• Guarantee local biofuels entrepreneurs access to existing fuel-distribution channels.

• Apply local manufacturing expertise to wind turbines. (Twenty years ago, Boeing built the world's largest wind turbine right here in Washington. Since then, while our country was cutting funding for alternative-energy research, other nations pressed forward and today's largest wind turbine manufacturers are in Europe, the leading producer of the world's fastest-growing power technology.)

• Capitalize on the confluence of our software industry, innovative local utilities, world-class universities and top-notch research labs to design "smart grid" technologies to run electrical grids more efficiently, operate our traffic arteries more smoothly, and design and operate green buildings that will cut fossil fuel dependence without compromising quality of life.

Energy independence merits more than a throwaway line in a speech. It is America's rightful destiny and a real opportunity to create a brighter future for ourselves, our children and our planet.

To get there we need leaders who will ask the American people to engage, commit and even to sacrifice. It is clear that this president and the Republican leadership in Congress are not up to that challenge. It is time to replace them with leaders who are.