Here is Barack Obama setting forth his plan for keeping America energy independent.   His plan is that America should control it’s own energy and it’s own destiny.  How?  By taking real steps away from purchasing $700,000,000 of foreign oil every day and, instead, creating our own energy.  We import more than 1/2 of the oil we use.  “We must end the age of oil in our time.”

Obama agrees with McCain that our dangerous addiction to oil has been 30 years in the making (Obama notes that McCain has been in power for 26 of those years).  He argues that it’s time to stop actionless talk about energy and the destruction of our environment, and it’s time to do something meaningful.   Obama quotes  (republican) Boone Pickens, who recently said that America’s energy predicament is “something we can’t drill our way out of.”

The centerpiece of Obama’s speech is developing new sources of renewable energy immediately.    We need to completely transform our economy.  Energy independence will require an “all-hands-on-deck” approach.    We will need to find numerous new ways to conserve energy, and it will take a lot of work.  But this will also create a new energy economy that will create numerous new jobs.

The goal:  In ten years, we will eliminate the need to import any oil from the middle east and Venezuela.

We can accomplish this goal with three steps.  Obama urges that though this sounds like “pie in the sky,” but that the current technology will allow it.  He urged that these goals are “achievable”:

1. Help American industry build high efficiency cars, including new 150 miles per gallon hybrids.
2. Require that 10% of energy comes from renewable sources by the end of Obama’s first term (that would double the current percentage).
3. Reduce American demand for electricity by 15% within 10 years (he cites California, whose use of electricity didn’t grow at all in the past 30 years, while in the rest of the country, usage has leaped 60%).

McCain’s policy does not pursue these goals, certainly not the goals regarding sustainable energy.  Rather, McCain is seeking to give more than $4 Billion in additional tax breaks to oil companies.  These tax breaks are to companies like Exxon Mobile, which makes $300,000 profit in the time it takes for a person to fill up the tank of one car.

Here’s Obama’s speech, which runs about 33 minutes.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC1A8dLkRWM[/youtube]