Energy and the Environment

America's excessive dependence on dirty energy, i.e., gasoline, oil, coal, and natural gas must end. It is damaging our health and that of our children and gravely threatening our planet's climate and future. Our dependence on foreign oil is funding our enemies, entrapping us in costly military adventures, and contributing to our massive trade deficit. Moreover, high oil prices are sustaining autocracies in Iran, Saudia Arabia, Russia, Venezuela, and other countries.

Our country generates over one quarter of the world's CO2 emissions and must take the lead in solving this problem for our children and those of other nations. We need an energy policy that efficiently taxes the use of dirty energy and uses the proceeds to subsidize clean alternatives. But clean energy must be clean over the long term. Nuclear energy can instantly turn dirty, as the disasters in Chernobyl and Fukushima clearly demonstrate. It is simply too dangerous for human use.

Development of hydropower, wind, solar, wave, hydrogen, biofuels, electricity,geothermal, biomass, and other clean or cleaner energy alternatives must be this decade's mission to the moon. This is not a Red or Blue political issue. This is an issue on which all Americans can agree.

The Purple (Red + Blue) Energy Plan at www.thepurpleenergyplan.org lays out my energy/environmental policy. As you'll read, I advocate a significant carbon tax that makes dirty energy face the external cost it imposes on society.

In advocating a carbon tax, I recognize that the scientific evidence supporting global warming and climate change is not 100 percent conclusive. I don't believe that any of the world's thousands of top scientists who believe global warming and climate change are underway would claim the evidence is 100 percent conclusive. What they claim is that there is very strong evidence supporting their beliefs.

If this were just an academic debate, we could leave things alone and just wait for more evidence to emerge. But this is not just an academic debate. If global warming and climate change are occurring, choosing not to act could have catastrophic consequences. On the other hand, if global warming and climate change are not occurring, imposing a carbon tax will be a costly, but not horrific mistake. Parents err on the side of caution in caring for their children. We adults are the parents of our children and the guardians our planet. We must err on the side of caution on this issue because the cost of being wrong is so large and the evidence supporting global warming and climate change is so strong.