On This Memorial Day
As we remember the loss of those who have served, we can also honor their memory by [re-]considering the conflicts that have taken so many too soon. Since Vietnam in the 1960’s and 70’s, our casualties have centered on the Middle East.
The bombing of Iran that began the latest war is far from the first time that events in the region have taken lives, rippled through our wallets and impacted the U.S. and global economies. It certainly won’t be the last, either. Despite the proximate stated rationale of this round—nuclear enrichment capabilities—it always comes down to oil. Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States have lots of it. Oil money props up dictators, funds terror and keeps everyone else over a barrel. [Hat tip to the memory of the irreplaceable Marshall Kaplan for that contextual pun.]
The U.S. becoming the #1 oil producer—which first came to be in the Obama years for those keeping track of the politics—only makes a difference on the literal and figurative margins. It certainly doesn’t spare us at the pump. Profits have skyrocketed, and we’ve all paid the price. There’s nothing mysterious about that. It’s just business. The underlying problem is not rational actors acting in their own interest; it’s that their interests do not align with ours.
This dynamic is as old as human civilizations. Oil is not like salt, but salt used to be like oil. Centuries ago, salt was a strategic commodity that provided essential nutrients and kept food from spoiling. It was controlled by Mesoamerican regimes that monopolized supplies and trade routes. They warred for it. Salt was the foundation of power, if not magnanimity.
Except at the occasional dinner table squabble, no one fights over salt anymore. We need oil to be more like salt: useful for its purposes but not THE deciding factor of our economic well-being. The only path to that future is to diversify the energy sources and types of fuels used in transportation.
Presidents Carter and W. Bush in particular well understood the challenge we are now learning once again. From fuel economy standards to the Renewable Fuel Standard and basically a handshake deal that at one time gave us 20 million flex-fuel vehicles on the road, we’ve nibbled at the apple but never had sufficient political will to structurally alter the status quo.
The best policy tool is not a secret. Clean Fuel Standards aka Low Carbon Fuel Standards have proven successful with a rare trifecta. They’ve consistently exceeded their goals, with no disruption to the system or consumers, at far lower than estimated cost.
To date, individual states have been the policy incubators. Clean Fuel Standards have already been tested at more than adequate scale, given that California is the equivalent of a sizeable country in itself. Four states including California are already in the books. Hawaii is poised to be next. At least seven more states are in various stages of consideration. Our northern neighbor Canada has a national program and the province of British Columbia has its own. The more, the better to scale up and catalyze new investments.
Now imagine if the U.S. federal government decided to get serious enough and ambitious enough to say enough is enough, in memory of those servicemembers we’ve lost. A national Clean Fuel Standard policy can at last free us from the strategic and economic consequences of overreliance on oil in transportation. It also would mean one less thing to fight about, and one less reason to put our troops in harm’s way.