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Friday August 15, 2008

Left and right unite: Jewish activists oppose candidates’ quick-fix energy plans

by ron kampeas
jta

For Jews, the energy debate is a case where security-minded conservatives and liberal environmentalists are generally in agreement.

National security hawks say the quick fixes touted by the campaigns of Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, and his Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, miss the bigger picture: America needs a comprehensive plan to wean itself from Middle Eastern oil, and fast.

McCain advocates allowing states to open up offshore sites previously closed to drilling. Obama wants to reduce replenishment of the strategic oil reserve, the Energy Department’s emergency stash.

Both candidates also tout more comprehensive policies, but they back these interim solutions as a way to address painful gasoline prices.

Such salves are meaningless without long-term planning, Jewish organizational officials say.

“We are not interested in interim solutions,” said Neil Goldstein, the executive director of the American Jewish Congress, a group that has taken a leading role among Jewish organizations in energy advocacy and independence. “The long-term position has to be to become independent — we must get off of this dependence on foreign oil.”

The AJCongress says the first priority should be to enact legislation to require America’s eventual transition to the manufacture of cars that run on alternative fuels.

Continued dependence on foreign oil subjects the United States to the potential threat of a supply cut-off. An Iranian blockade of the Straits of Hormuz, through which much of the Middle East’s oil must travel, would have immediate and catastrophic consequences.

Likewise, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela could follow through on threats to stop oil sales to the United States, though the prospect is unlikely given that Venezuela is as reliant on America’s oil purchases as America is on Venezuelan oil sales.

The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs faulted both major U.S. political parties for politicking instead of working out a comprehensive plan.

JINSA and the American Jewish Committee propose removing a tariff of 54 cents per gallon on the importation of sugar ethanol from South American and Caribbean nations. The tariff satisfies American farmers producing corn ethanol, but sugar ethanol has proven much more efficient to manufacture.

The tariff makes little sense given the exigencies of petroleum security, said Ami Greener, the AJCommittee’s energy policy specialist. Brazil, which is friendly to the United States, is a major sugar producer while Venezuela, which has cozied up to Iran, is a major oil supplier.

“I’d rather see our money going to Brazil than Venezuela,” Greener said.

There are a vast number of alternatives, including tax credits for using alternative fuel, research into more efficient coal use, the use of windmills and natural gas, and the development of electric cars, Greener said.

That doesn’t count out drilling offshore or in Alaska, he said, but it must be done in context.

“We have 2 to 3 percent of the oil reserves, and we use 25 percent, and it won’t come down from drilling or political pandering,” he said.

While AJCongress and AJCommittee take environmental issues into account when formulating energy policies and considering which legislation to support, some groups have made environmental concerns the determining issue.

The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, a collection of about a dozen national groups that includes the Reform and Conservative movements, issued a statement last week calling for an emphasis on climate change and natural resources in creating energy policies.

“It is the responsibility of every human, from every walk of life and every religious background, to protect the environment for ourselves and for the generations to come,” said the statement from the coalition, which operates under the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

The statement cited the “need for promoting domestic energy security, increasing fuel economy and supporting the development of new methods of renewable energy.”

The JCPA has long opposed drilling in Alaska’s wildlife refuge, said Hadar Susskind, its Washington director.

“It’s been used as a political straw man, throwing it out there knowing it’s not going to happen,” Susskind said.

He cited government figures showing that the drilling would have a negligible impact on prices.

“It wouldn’t have any real impact,” Susskind said. “It’s bad and ineffective.”

The Reform movement’s Religious Action Center has been especially aggressive in opposing Alaska drilling.

“Jewish tradition insists that we care for the earth and preserve the goodness of God’s creation,” the center said in a backgrounder published last year. “We are instructed in the Torah not to destroy … rather, we are to become stewards and protectors of the land.”

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