The Audacity of Hope (21 page)

Dr. Langer’s observation isn’t unique. Each month, it seems, scientists and engineers visit my office to discuss the federal government’s diminished commitment to funding basic scientific research. Over the last three decades federal funding for the physical, mathematical, and engineering sciences has declined as a percentage of GDP—just at the time when other countries are substantially increasing their own R & D budgets. And as Dr. Langer points out, our declining support for basic research has a direct impact on the number of young people going into math, science, and engineering— which helps explain why China is graduating eight times as many engineers as the United States every year.

If we want an innovation economy, one that generates more Googles each year, then we have to invest in our future innovators—by doubling federal funding of basic research over the next five years, training one hundred thousand more engineers and scientists over the next four years, or providing new research grants to the most outstanding early- career researchers in the country. The total price tag for maintaining our scientific and technological edge comes out to approximately $42 billion over five years—real money, to be sure, but just 15 percent of the most recent federal highway bill.

In other words, we can afford to do what needs to be done. What’s missing is not money, but a national sense of urgency.

THE LAST CRITICAL investment we need to make America more competitive is in an energy infrastructure that can move us toward energy independence. In the past, war or a direct threat to national security has shaken America out of its complacency and led to bigger investments in education and science, all with an eye toward minimizing our vulnerabilities. That’s what happened at the height of the Cold War, when the launching of the satellite Sputnik led to fears that the Soviets were slipping ahead of us technologically. In response, President Eisenhower doubled federal aid to education and provided an entire generation of scientists and engineers the training they needed to lead revolutionary advances. That same year, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, was formed, providing billions of dollars to basic research that would eventually help create the Internet, bar codes, and computer-aided design. And in 1961, President Kennedy would launch the Apollo space program, further inspiring young people across the country to enter the New Frontier of science.

Our current situation demands that we take the same approach with energy. It’s hard to overstate the degree to which our addiction to oil undermines our future. According to

the National Commission on Energy Policy, without any changes to our energy policy U.S. demand for oil will jump 40 percent over the next twenty years. Over the same period, worldwide demand is expected to jump at least 30 percent, as rapidly developing countries like China and India expand industrial capacity and add 140 million cars to their roads.

Our dependence on oil doesn’t just affect our economy. It undermines our national security. A large portion of the $800 million we spend on foreign oil every day goes to some of the world’s most volatile regimes—Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and, indirectly at least, Iran. It doesn’t matter whether they are despotic regimes with nuclear intentions or havens for madrassas that plant the seeds of terror in young minds—they get our money because we need their oil.

What’s worse, the potential for supply disruption is severe. In the Persian Gulf, Al Qaeda has been attempting attacks on poorly defended oil refineries for years; a successful attack on just one of the Saudis’ major oil complexes could send the U.S. economy into a tailspin. Osama bin Laden himself advises his followers to “focus your operations on [oil], especially in Iraq and the Gulf area, since this will cause them to die off.”

And then there are the environmental consequences of our fossil fuel–based economy. Just about every scientist outside the White House believes climate change is real, is serious, and is accelerated by the continued release of carbon dioxide. If the prospect of melting ice caps, rising sea levels, changing weather patterns, more frequent hurricanes, more violent tornadoes, endless dust storms, decaying forests, dying coral reefs, and increases in respiratory illness and insect-borne diseases—if all that doesn’t constitute a serious threat, I don’t know what does.

So far, the Bush Administration’s energy policy has been focused on subsidies to big oil companies and expanded drilling—coupled with token investments in the development of alternative fuels. This approach might make economic sense if America harbored plentiful and untapped oil supplies that could meet its needs (and if oil companies weren’t experiencing record profits). But such supplies don’t exist. The United States has 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves. We use 25 percent of the world’s oil. We can’t drill our way out of the problem.

What we can do is create renewable, cleaner energy sources for the twenty-first century. Instead of subsidizing the oil industry, we should end every single tax break the industry currently receives and demand that 1 percent of the revenues from oil companies with over $1 billion in quarterly profits go toward financing alternative energy research and the necessary infrastructure. Not only would such a project pay huge economic, foreign policy, and environmental dividends—it could be the vehicle by which we train an entire new generation of American scientists and engineers and a source of new export industries and high-wage jobs.

Countries like Brazil have already done this. Over the last thirty years, Brazil has used a mix of regulation and direct government investment to develop a highly efficient biofuel industry; 70 percent of its new vehicles now run on sugar-based ethanol instead of gasoline. Without the same governmental attention, the U.S. ethanol industry is just now catching up. Free-market proponents argue that the heavy-handed approach of the

Brazilian government has no place in the more market-oriented U.S. economy. But regulation, if applied with flexibility and sensitivity to market forces, can actually spur private sector innovation and investment in the energy sector.

Take the issue of fuel-efficiency standards. Had we steadily raised those standards over the past two decades, when gas was cheap, U.S. automakers might have invested in new, fuel-efficient models instead of gas-guzzling SUVs—making them more competitive as gas prices rose. Instead, we’re seeing Japanese competitors run circles around Detroit. Toyota plans to sell one hundred thousand of their popular Priuses in 2006, while GM’s hybrid won’t even hit the market until 2007. And we can expect companies like Toyota to outcompete U.S automakers in the burgeoning Chinese market since China already has higher fuel-efficiency standards than we do.

The bottom line is that fuel-efficient cars and alternative fuels like E85, a fuel formulated with 85 percent ethanol, represent the future of the auto industry. It is a future American car companies can attain if we start making some tough choices now. For years U.S. automakers and the UAW have resisted higher fuel-efficiency standards because retooling costs money, and Detroit is already struggling under huge retiree health-care costs and stiff competition. So during my first year in the Senate I proposed legislation I called “Health Care for Hybrids.” The bill makes a deal with U.S. automakers: In exchange for federal financial assistance in meeting the health-care costs of retired autoworkers, the Big Three would reinvest these savings into developing more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Aggressively investing in alternative fuel sources can also lead to the creation of thousands of new jobs. Ten or twenty years down the road, that old Maytag plant in Galesburg could reopen its doors as a cellulosic ethanol refinery. Down the street, scientists might be busy in a research lab working on a new hydrogen cell. And across the way, a new auto company could be busy churning out hybrid cars. The new jobs created could be filled by American workers trained with new skills and a world-class education, from elementary school to college.

But we can’t afford to hesitate much longer. I got a glimpse of what a nation’s dependence on foreign energy can do in the summer of 2005, when Senator Dick Lugar and I visited Ukraine and met with the country’s newly elected president, Viktor Yushchenko. The story of Yushchenko’s election had made headlines around the world: Running against a ruling party that for years had catered to the wishes of neighboring Russia, Yushchenko survived an assassination attempt, a stolen election, and threats from Moscow, before the Ukrainian people finally rose up in an “Orange Revolution”— a series of peaceful mass demonstrations that ultimately led to Yushchenko’s installation as president.

It should have been a heady time in the former Soviet state, and indeed, everywhere we went there was talk of democratic liberalization and economic reform. But in our conversations with Yushchenko and his cabinet, we soon discovered that Ukraine had a major problem—it continued to be entirely dependent on Russia for all its oil and natural gas. Already, Russia had indicated that it would end Ukraine’s ability to purchase this energy at below-world-market prices, a move that would lead to a tripling of home heating oil prices during the winter months leading up to parliamentary elections. Pro-Russian forces inside the country were biding their time, aware that for

all the soaring rhetoric, the orange banners, the demonstrations, and Yushchenko’s courage, Ukraine still found itself at the mercy of its former patron.

A nation that can’t control its energy sources can’t control its future. Ukraine may have little choice in the matter, but the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth surely does.

EDUCATION. SCIENCE AND technology. Energy. Investments in these three key areas would go a long way in making America more competitive. Of course, none of these investments will yield results overnight. All will be subject to controversy. Investment in R & D and education will cost money at a time when our federal budget is already stretched. Increasing the fuel efficiency of American cars or instituting performance pay for public-school teachers will involve overcoming the suspicions of workers who already feel embattled. And arguments over the wisdom of school vouchers or the viability of hydrogen fuel cells won’t go away anytime soon.

But while the means we use to accomplish these ends should be subject to vigorous and open debate, the ends themselves shouldn’t be in dispute. If we fail to act, our competitive position in the world will decline. If we act boldly, then our economy will be less vulnerable to economic disruption, our trade balance will improve, the pace of U.S. technological innovation will accelerate, and the American worker will be in a stronger position to adapt to the global economy.

Still, will that be enough? Assuming we’re able to bridge some of our ideological differences and keep the U.S. economy growing, will I be able to look squarely in the eyes of those workers in Galesburg and tell them that globalization can work for them and their children?

That was the question on my mind during the 2005 debate on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA. Viewed in isolation, the agreement posed little threat to American workers—the combined economies of the Central American countries involved were roughly the same as that of New Haven, Connecticut. It opened up new markets for U.S. agricultural producers, and promised much-needed foreign investment in poor countries like Honduras and the Dominican Republic. There were some problems with the agreement, but overall, CAFTA was probably a net plus for the U.S. economy.

When I met with representatives from organized labor, though, they were having none of it. As far as they were concerned, NAFTA had been a disaster for U.S. workers, and CAFTA just promised more of the same. What was needed, they said, was not just free trade but fair trade: stronger labor protections in countries that trade with the United States, including rights to unionize and bans on child labor; improved environmental standards in these same countries; an end to unfair government subsidies to foreign exporters and nontariff barriers on U.S. exports; stronger protections for U.S. intellectual property; and—in the case of China in particular—an end to an artificially devalued currency that put U.S. companies at a perpetual disadvantage.

Like most Democrats, I strongly support all these things. And yet, I felt obliged to say to the union reps that none of these measures would change the underlying realities of globalization. Stronger labor or environmental provisions in a trade bill can help put pressure on countries to keep improving worker conditions, as can efforts to obtain agreements from U.S. retailers to sell goods produced at a fair wage. But they won’t eliminate the enormous gap in hourly wages between U.S. workers and workers in Honduras, Indonesia, Mozambique, or Bangladesh, countries where work in a dirty factory or overheated sweatshop is often considered a step up on the economic ladder.

Likewise, China’s willingness to let its currency rise might modestly raise the price on goods manufactured there, thereby making U.S. goods somewhat more competitive. But when all is said and done, China will still have more surplus labor in its countryside than half the entire population of the United States—which means Wal-Mart will be keeping suppliers there busy for a very, very long time.

We need a new approach to the trade question, I would say, one that acknowledges these realities.

And my union brothers and sisters would nod and say that they were interested in talking to me about my ideas—but in the meantime, could they mark me as a “no” vote on CAFTA?

In fact, the basic debate surrounding free trade has hardly changed since the early 1980s, with labor and its allies generally losing the fight. The conventional wisdom among policy makers, the press, and the business community these days is that free trade makes everyone better off. At any given time, so the argument goes, some U.S. jobs may be lost to trade and cause localized pain and hardship—but for every one thousand manufacturing jobs lost due to a plant closure, the same or an even greater number of jobs will be created in the new and expanding service sectors of the economy.