Improving Energy Security through Transportation Policy

Shoveling a lot of money to buy oil from other countries -- propping up regimes like Iran's and Venezuela's -- during an economic downturn is not the smartest move. As T. Boone Pickens noted recently, we shelled $50 billion out in the first two months of this year alone. Thankfully, the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee had an important hearing yesterday about ways to shore up our national security by addressing energy in the next transportation bill. I was one of the witnesses, and you can read my testimony here.

I describe collaboration with an unusually broad group of energy and transportation experts called Mobility Choice initiated by a respected energy security group, the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS). Our mission? To help drive down oil dependence by delivering more mobility choices to commuters and consumers. The group is growing, and here's the list of those enrolled thus far: Anne Korin and Gal Luft of IAGS; Cliff May, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Robert C. McFarlane, former National Security Advisor; R. James Woolsey, former director of Central Intelligence Agency; James Strock, Former California Secretary for Environmental Protection; John Norquist, Congress for the New Urbanism; former Mayor of Milwaukee; Matthew Rojansky, Partnership for a Secure America; Kenneth Green, American Enterprise Institute; Peter J. Pantuso, American Bus Association; Admiral Dennis McGinn; Chuck Wilsker, Telework Coalition; Lisa Margonelli, New America Foundation.

We have a blueprint that could save about two million barrels of oil a day by 2030, a substantial contribution to the nation's efforts to become energy independent. Stay tuned for more details about this new group and the benefits of the blueprint for mobility choice.