THE ENERGY OPPORTUNITY - The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future - page 209

encouraging reforms that make it easier to develop new energy sources,
whatever they are.

P eople on the two sides of the bat le for the future of American

energy need not coalesce around a common vision of what is good
for the country in order to strike a deal. Many people, for example, will
never buy into the argument that confronting climate change is worth
any serious ef ort. Many others will never accept that the environmen-
tal damages of oil drilling can be outweighed by economic or security
gains. Some will always think that green jobs are the only ones that
make sense; others will see opportunity only in fossil fuels. Nor is it
reasonable to expect that either side will abandon tactical moves that
put pressure on their old adversaries. But the two sides ultimately don't
need to agree on priorities, or form a consistent common front, in order
to support a strategy that pushes forward carefully on multiple agendas.
h ey merely need to both make political judgments that the benei ts to
their priorities from a broad-based approach will outweigh the conces-
sions they need to make—and decide to treat energy mostly on its own
merits instead of as a proxy for far less tractable ideological i ghts.
Part of this is a mat er of building trust, which might be helped along
through small deals that benei t both sides. Congress could expand
access to areas for oil and gas production while commit ing the royalties
to support clean energy development; it could shit tax breaks for oil
producers toward support for carbon capture and sequestration that's
used to enhance oil output; it could revamp rules for development in
ways that help old and new energy at the same time.
But perhaps the biggest barrier to taking the plunge is suspicion on
all sides that accepting much of their opponents' agendas requires fun-
damentally undermining their own—that even a smart strategy blend-
ing old and new energy is incoherent. Fortunately, as we have seen, the
suspicion is incorrect.
Only a fool would guarantee that a strategy embracing opportunities
in oil, gas, ei ciency, and alternatives all at once will become a political
hit. But the odds for success with a broad strategy are ultimately far bet-
ter than those for a narrower and more exclusive ef ort that focuses on