By Jim Arkedis of the Progressive Policy Institute
Absent the welcome bipartisan sentiment that accompanied 2008′s $4-a-gallon gas prices, the debate over climate change has fallen into the same political rut as the rest of Washington. Despite what’s generally referred to as “overwhelming scientific evidence” about the man-made origin of the earth’s gradual warming, Republicans are in no mood to give science its due. Take Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), for example, who as recently as March called climate change the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”
With political division like that, even the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico won’t be enough to save the recently introduced Kerry-Lieberman bill, which seems all but dead-on-arrival. The bill lost its only Republican co-sponsor, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), even before its introduction, and picking up another Republican on the way to a filibuster-proof 60 votes looks daunting with midterms just around the corner.
But despite the political mess, one very public group is providing leadership on energy because it doesn’t have a choice: the United States military. They’re not at the tip of the green spear because they’re a group of tree-hugging environmentalists, either.
As my colleague Mike Signer has written:
[C]lean energy and efficiency programs would not only help reduce our carbon output and achieve energy efficiency; they would directly increase the effectiveness of our military. … [E]very $10 increase in the price of oil translates into a $1.3 billion increase in the Pentagon’s operating costs.
He echoed Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, who has been a champion of reducing his department’s carbon footprint. The Navy recently succeeded in flying the “Green Hornet,” an off-the-shelf F/A-18 fighter jet, on a 50-50 mixture of biofuels and standard aviation fuel, with no engineering modifications. This is part of Secretary Mabus’ initiative to sail a “Great Green Fleet,” a strike group that uses no fossil fuels, by 2016. Here’s what he said following the Green Hornet flight:
The case for action is clear in terms of changing the way we use fuels. …. We are sending money abroad to power our own defense. … We cannot be beholden to a resource controlled by others. We would never accept that our aircraft or our ships be built overseas, and yet we accept today that they be powered from resources from overseas.
While one-off projects like the Great Green Fleet are worthy endeavors that cut through the political debate on climate change, a handful of legislative “plan Bs” have emerged to get something out of Congress on energy policy should Kerry-Lieberman meet its nearly pre-ordained demise.
One of these, from Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), focuses on institutionalizing energy efficiency goals across the entire Department of Defense. Her proposed law would require DoD to develop a plan to achieve the goal of deriving 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2025, in addition to increasing procurement of hybrid and other energy efficient vehicles. You can see a good summary of the bill here.
It’s a decent start, but military culture constantly pushes it to do more. Above and beyond Giffords’ bill—and there’s no conventional wisdom about how it has been received yet—the military should take a look at other concrete ideas to increase energy efficiency. Take a paper that my think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute, just put out a few weeks ago. Called “Cutting the Tether,” it’s by Iraq and Afghanistan veteran Jim Morin, who advocates innovative ideas to increase the military’s energy efficiency even more:
- Reform the acquisitions process. The Pentagon should fully account for the cost of battlefield fuel in all purchasing and logistical decisions.
- Improve in-theater energy performance. The military should implement new energy-performance technology at forward operating bases and other battlefield locations.
- Boost clean energy and efficiency at all Defense Department installations. For domestic bases, in particular, decreasing dependence on fossil fuels and the public electricity grid removes potential liabilities.
- Strengthen research and development and enhance commercialization of nascent clean energy technologies. By taking an active role as developer and customer, the Pentagon can help scale up clean tech innovations.
Who knows, if the military continues to change the national culture on carbon emissions, maybe enough Americans will follow. Then we won’t need $100 tanks of gas to get beyond debates over the science of climate change.
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