On the same day that Sen. McCain ran his first two TV ads in New Hampshire (as Kavon graciously posted below), he takes to the pages of the National Review to lay out his comprehensive energy policy. It’s a lengthy article, but it should definitely be read in full. Some important points:

America’s dependency on foreign oil is a major strategic vulnerability for our nation. One element in al Qaeda’s war against us is to target the U.S. economy by driving up the price of oil in the hope that severe recession and higher inflation will follow. Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda terrorists have spoken many times about the need to “mount … operations accordingly” in order to hit energy supply points in the Middle East and other regions to spike oil prices. Moreover, while most of the world’s known reserves are in the Persian Gulf, oil supplies are no more secure elsewhere on the globe. In Russia and Venezuela, Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez have rolled back democracy and utilized oil and gas as foreign policy weapons. Nigerian supplies - our fifth-largest supplier - are endangered by internal strife. Oil’s availability is uncertain and its price at the mercy of countries where our values aren’t typically shared and our interests aren’t their first priority….

National security depends on energy security, which we cannot achieve if we remain so dependent on imported oil from Middle Eastern governments who support or foment, by their own inattention and inequities, the rise of terrorists or on swaggering demagogues and would be dictators in our hemisphere. Additionally, by mid-century there will be three-and-a-half billion cars worldwide - over four times the number today. As world demand for oil soars, higher prices, severe economic volatility, and heightened international tensions follow. These unpredictable forces could seriously circumscribe our future if we let them.

As president, I won’t let that happen….

With some of the savings from cutting subsidies for industries that can stand on their own, we can establish a national challenge to improve the cost, range, size, and weight of electric batteries for automobiles. Fifty percent of cars on the road are driven 25 miles a day or less. Affordable battery-powered vehicles, that can meet average commuter needs, could help us cut oil imports in half. The reward will be earned through merit by whoever accomplishes the task, whether it comes from a laboratory in the Department of Energy, a university, a corporation, or an enterprising young inventor who works out of his family’s garage….

We have in use today, a zero-emission energy that could provide electricity for millions more homes and businesses than it currently does. Yet it has been over 25 years since a nuclear-power plant has been constructed. The barriers to nuclear energy are political not technological. We’ve let the fears of 30 years ago, and an endless political squabble over the storage of nuclear spent fuel make it virtually impossible to build a single new plant that produces a form of energy that is safe and non-polluting. If France can produce 80-percent of its electricity with nuclear power, why can’t we? Is France a more secure, advanced, and innovative country than we are? Are France’s scientists and entrepreneurs more capable than we are? I need no answer to that rhetorical question. I know my country well enough to know otherwise….

Answering great challenges is nothing new to America. It’s what we do. We built the rockets that took us to the moon - not because it was easy, but because it was hard. We’ve sent space probes into the distant reaches of the universe. We harnessed nuclear energy, mapped the human genome, created the Internet, and pioneered integrated circuits that consolidate the computing power of the Apollo spacecraft onto a barely visible silicon chip. If we can do all this, we can surely solve our oil-dependence problem, and strengthen our security.

Like so much in America these days, energy independence was a temporary fad. When gas prices climbed to over $3.50 a gallon last year, there was a vocal outcry for someone to do something. Politicians and pundits took to the airwaves to assure the public that energy independence was on the way. President Bush used much of his 2006 State of the Union to tout this goal. Lots of people decided to take public transportation, put their SUV’s in the garage, maybe even buy a Prius, but as soon as gas prices went down again, the old habits returned. Nowadays the issue of energy independence has virtually vanished from public discourse. That is until gas prices go up again, of course.

That’s one thing, among many, that I admire about John McCain. He understands that it’s one thing to talk about developing more domestic energy sources and another thing to actually get it enacted. To achieve real change, the nation as a whole must be called upon to act. As McCain says, not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.