The Al Gore Dilemma
This morning I attended an event sponsored by the Arms Control Association at the Carnegie Endowment, and it has prompted a series of conversations on energy and national security (including an earlier version of this post) that got me thinking about what I’ll call “the Al Gore dilemma.” By this last term, I refer to the uncomfortable reality that many of our most prominent leaders, most famously Al Gore, have trouble explaining the apparent inconsistency between their leadership on matters of conservation policy and their energy-intensive personal lifestyle choices. It cropped up even more explosively after the first democratic presidential debate, when the AP reported that the majority of the candidates, all of whom are fans of kicking the fossil fuel habit, arrived by private or chartered jet. Well, the most recent (and admittedly much lower profile) example occurred this morning.
Ellen Tauscher, of California’s 10th Congressional District (also my home district), Chair of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, spoke at Carnegie on the importance of a defensive missile shield for all our NATO allies (not just ourselves), and the imperative to build it in a transparent, cooperative manner with the Russians. She also railed against Bush for abandoning soft power and diplomacy as US security tools, and called for extension of the 1991 START agreement, set to expire in 2009.
Frankly, she made some excellent points.
But I observed an unfortunate irony in the fact that Tauscher arrived for the event in a sleek black luxury sedan–not by car, metro, taxi or any number of other less fuel-expending modes of transport–and that the car waited for 40-50 minutes (idling at least part of the time) in the driveway. In truth, there is nothing out of the ordinary about the spectacle of a black sedan, rumbling away outside some well-known DC restaurant, government office, or think tank, while the policymakers inside tut tut over the terrible threats we face from rogue regimes like Iran and the terrorists they fund. But that’s just the problem.
Even if it’s just a few bucks worth of gas unnecessarily spent to give our lawmakers a swifter, smoother ride to and from their various engagements, they–like Al Gore–are in the very uncomfortable position of appearing not to practice what they preach.
On a policy level, the problem is we’re stuck with an archaic transportation infrastructure that, in its lust for oil, sends millions of dollars every day to the least responsible governments and the biggest sponsors of anti-American violence. That means almost any way we choose to travel is less efficient than it could be, and thus more supportive of America’s sworn enemies than it should be. The great bulk of Americans will have to wait for cleaner technologies to make broader inroads into the market before their consumption decisions will significantly impact national security.
But for opinion leaders like Al Gore and Ellen Tauscher, it’s different.
Members of Congress, especially senior people in the majority, send messages to their constituents and the world with what they do. When they have a meaningful choice (turn off the engine, take the metro, share a taxi, bike, or walk) that many Americans who have to spend hours in traffic every week simply lack, they also have an obligation to be consistent. It might require some unpleasant sacrifice, but nobody said being energy independent was easy.
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