Yesterday, I attended The Fourteenth Annual POWER Conference on Energy Policy and Research hosted by the Center for Study of Energy Markets (CSEM).

Suffice it to say that it was very high level.  Economists presented their findings including sophisticated regression analysis and lots of numbers, charts and graphs.  Wow, was it detailed and math heavy?

What was the takeaway?  There is much more to energy policy issues than is reported in the news, shown in oil and natural gas commercials or chanted in drill, baby, drill rallies.

Here is a video that shows every president from Nixon to Bush 43 talking about Energy Independence:

http://endependence.info/research/videos-c-12-v-65.html

Now, President Obama is making energy policy a major focus of his budget, intending to turn talk about energy independence into action.

When energy policy is being shaped by governments (local, state or federal) and public utility regulators, they need information about what works and what doesn’t work (or what might work and what might not work).  This is where the economists come in with their complex formulas and statistical analysis.

What question needs to be answered, what data is available, what data needs to be included in the study, what needs to be excluded, what time period is relevant, what was going on at the time that would skew the results, etc., etc., etc.  After they have that figured out, then they have to reduce it to a formula and use computers to run the data through the formula.  Here is a sample of the topics:

“Regulation, Allocation, and Leakage in Cap-and-Trade Markets for CO2“

“How Do Firms Exercise Market Power in Hydro Dominated Markets?“

“What Do Emissions Markets Deliver and to Whom? Evidence from Southern California’s NOx Trading Program“

Presentations were made by the economists and consultants and then “discussants” (other experts in the field) made suggestions for improvement or further study.  You should have been there.

Actually, we should be thankful that there are people working so hard on these and other energy issues.  Their work should lead to better decisions by policy makers, if they base their policies on science instead of knee jerk reactions and political expediency.  That is a big IF.

The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.

That is the official name of the familiar roads we know as I-10, I-95, I-5, etc.

The Intestate part is obvious, but why “defense highways”?

The story boils down to the vision and efforts of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In 1919, Lieutenant Colonel Eisenhower was part of an army convoy that crossed the country from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco.  The 81 vehicles took 62 days to cross the country at an average speed of 6 miles per hour.

After his stint as Supreme Allied Commander in WWII, and having seen the Autobahns in Germany, Eisenhower became convinced that it was imperative for the United States to build a high speed highway system to move materiel and troops in time of war.

The Interstate Highway System had other major benefits, changing the social and commercial fabric of the country.  America became a mobile culture.

How was the $129 Billion highway system paid for?  Through gasoline taxes.  At the time it was proposed, some of the critics called it a “socialistic scheme to transfer the cost of providing deluxe highways from those most benefited to the already heavily burdened landowner.”

Sound familiar?  Are there many around today who still bemoan the interstates as a socialistic scheme?

Now the parallel with the proposed alternative energy economic stimulus strategy being contemplated by the incoming Obama administration.

Endependence thinks a great case can be made to promote spending on alternative energy infrastructure as a matter of national defense.  We need to insulate ourselves from the spikes in the cost of fossil fuel energy and their toxic effects on the environment.  America should become the world leader in harvesting and using renewable energy.

We can pay for it with a gasoline tax, or a carbon tax.

A suggestion for a name for this move toward energy independence that ends dependence on polluting fuels:

The Barack Obama Interstate Alternative Energy Defense Network.

Here is the link to an article about the Interstate Highway system:

http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2006/summer/interstates.html