Leading by Example: How We Can Inspire an Energy and Security Revolution

America is just one crisis away from an energy emergency that will completely disrupt daily life, sharply increase energy prices, and perhaps even lead to a military intervention in world energy markets. Yet, as households and businesses suffer the impacts of our nation's worsening oil addiction, and as the world's atmosphere clogs with carbon pollution, there is just one bold, integrated, comprehensive energy program on the table. This is it.

In Leading by Example, Governor Richardson offers a positive, practical vision of the future that will eliminate our nation's crippling dependence on foreign oil, while rapidly cutting our climate-changing emissions. The program relies on new technologies and domestic energy sources, from renewables to efficiency and plug-in cars, that will grow the American economy while protecting our national security and restoring an oil-free foreign policy. Bill Richardson sees a thriving nation, invigorated by new opportunities, free from the constant threat of interrupted oil supplies, and finding innovative solutions for slowing and reversing global climate change. America will once again lead the world toward peace and prosperity. But to achieve these changes, America must move quickly.

Calling on every man, woman, and child in the United States to take part in an ambitious nationwide campaign to achieve energy independence in the very near future, Richardson lays out the details of a plan designed to:

• Cut oil dependence 50 percent by 2020, including an 80 percent reduction in oil imports

• Reduce carbon emissions 20 to 30 percent by 2020 and 90 percent by 2050

• Quickly bring new automotive technologies to market

• Develop, manufacture, and export energy-saving technologies

• Decrease the need for American forces to defend world oil supplies

• Meet energy demand much more efficiently across the economy

• Develop, manufacture, and export energy-saving technologies

• Restore America's leadership role in the world, from energy to climate to world peace and security

Governor Richardson knows that the American people are ready for change, eager to play their part, and impatient for leadership that addresses the energy-environment-security nexus as a whole. In Leading by Example, he sets the standard for a fully developed, well-considered energy plan—one that demands committed presidential leadership and deserves the support of the American people.

Global climate change?

We can stop it.

Addiction to oil?We can replace it.

Technological innovation?

We can create it.

But we can't wait twenty, thirty, or fifty years.

Bill Richardson launched his campaign for the presidency to remind the American people--and their representatives in Washington--that we know how to get things done. We need to end our dependence on oil, and we need to do it yesterday.

This isn't something that's going to happen only in Washington, or Detroit, or even Hollywood or Tokyo. It's going to take all of us, a united United States. We have the opportunity, perhaps for only a few years, to make dramatic but beneficial changes in the way we run America.

As Leading by Example makes clear, if we succeed, with strong presidential leadership and the support of the American people, we will restore America's role in the world--a source of moral leadership, a source of astonishing technology, and a source of optimism to be admired.

Global climate change?

We can stop it.

Addiction to oil?We can replace it.

Technological innovation?

We can create it.

But we can't wait twenty, thirty, or fifty years.

Bill Richardson launched his campaign for the presidency to remind the American people—and their representatives in Washington—that we know how to get things done. We need to end our dependence on oil, and we need to do it yesterday.

This isn't something that's going to happen only in Washington, or Detroit, or even Hollywood or Tokyo. It's going to take all of us, a united United States. We have the opportunity, perhaps for only a few years, to make dramatic but beneficial changes in the way we run America.

As Leading by Example makes clear, if we succeed, with strong presidential leadership and the support of the American people, we will restore America's role in the world—a source of moral leadership, a source of astonishing technology, and a source of optimism to be admired.

Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM) has served as Secretary of Energy and Ambassador to the United Nations. Now, as the only candidate with executive and foreign policy experience, he presents an action program to sharply reduce America's oil dependence, build foreign policy on our principles instead of our addictions, and lead the world with energy and climate solutions that might just save millions of American jobs—and the planet.

Introduction.

1. No Challenge Is Greater or More Important.

2. 1997–2007: Then and Now.

3. Oil, Coal, and the Planet’s Future.

4. A Confused World, an Opportunity to Lead.

5. Learning from Others.

6. The Costs of Action, the Price of Inaction.

7. Government Must Play a Role.

8. Using the Bully Pulpit: The Power of the Energy President.

9. Facing Reality.

10. 2020 Vision: An Energy Revolution, in Five Simple Steps.

Acknowledgments.

Further Reading.

Index.