As much as we need to approve the Keystone pipeline, we need to think far broader than that.
In the history of America, we've never had an energy plan. We don't even realize the resources we have available to us.
We don't have all the time in the world with oil. We have to use oil while it makes sense to do so.
I think you could offer seven or eight different possible ends for energy policy. Climate change is one of them. Dealing with criteria pollutants is one of those related to that.
Yet since the 1950s, little has been done to prepare for our country's current or future energy needs.
In energy, you have to plan and do research way in advance, sometimes decades in advance to get a new system that's safer, doesn't require us to go around the world to get all our oil.
There is no plan today to fully give up on coal. Experts point out that our supplies run for another 200 years, and it would be hard not to use them.
We have to be aware that fossil fuel energy sources have an expiry date. A timeframe of 30, 40 or 50 years can seem a long time to get rewards for economic policy, but it's only a short time for implementing a new energy policy.
