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on the

ground zero zero

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zero zero zero on.

Thank you Rebecca.
I was told some people there last night

that last Thursday I tried to leave.

I was it was negative twenty.

Eight degrees and I couldn't start
my car so I'm really thankful for

this fifty degree weather.

We have out here and to be back down
south on July fifteenth of last

summer the Atlanta Journal Constitution
published an opinion piece by

a presidential historian Joseph Whelan
entitled second hearing for

Carter he was right and in this article.

We'll in argue that it was time for

Carter's detractors to stop
ridiculing his term in office and for

all of us to start reexamining his energy
policy more closely now as you may recall

last summer was economically Simpson
Miller to Carter's own times we had crude

oil prices had risen sharply gasoline
was more than four dollars a gallon and

spot fuel shortages began to crop up in
Atlanta and other areas of the South after

a thirty year hiatus energy was suddenly
back in our political consciousness

reminding us of Mark Twain's famous quip
that while history may not repeat itself.

It does sometimes rhyme.

So in my presentation today I want to
revisit those Carter years by talking

about why if indeed he was so
prescient Carter wasn't more successful

in persuading the American public
to embrace his inner G. policies.

So to begin our first give
a brief overview of scholarship

related to the rhetorical presidency
of my own methods of reconstructing

history rhetorically Nextel outlined some
of the key features of Carter's national

energy plan and the persuasive techniques
used to sell it to both Congress and

the public third I'll talk
about some of the political and

rhetorical factors that
affected the plant's fate and

finally I'm going to close out by
discussing some of the lessons that we can

learn from Carter's interview policy
formation and his rhetorical methods for

it's my contention that the Carter
years were a dress rehearsal for

the energy policies that we'll see in
the next decade in many ways a script is

the same as it was then but
I believe that in today's political.

Why might we stand a much better chance
of making a difference if only we and

our leaders are politically and

rhetorically adept it should be as
no surprise to students of American

politics that the presidency has gained
substantially more power in the twentieth

century there was ever a new vision by
the Founding Fathers for scholar Richard

new step much of that expanded power can
be traced to the president's ability to

persuade others in the process of
bargaining over political go instead

of using our system of government as one
of separate powers news debt recall recast

it as one of shared powers with governance
negotiated between the president and

congress building on new status ideas
Geoffrey Thomas in his nine hundred

eighty seven book The rhetorical
presidency presented a theory of a second

Constitution where in twentieth century
presidents have assumed an active and

continuous rhetorical leadership of
popular opinion via the mass media and

nearly continual election cycles Tellus
believe that this type of rhetorical

leadership arose only in the twentieth
century largely in response to

new media technologies but
rhetorical scholar David ziran ski

has made a convincing argument
that the presidency has been

in office where relief rhetorical
leadership has always Forest

earlier presidents transformed traditional
ceremonial addresses such as the inaugural

address in the state of the Union into
platforms for promoting policy and

presidents have also enhanced their
leadership through public forums of

rhetorical invention such as declaring
an election mandate and also going public.

The latter being a rhetorical
act that scholar Samuel

canal most strongly associates
with Carter and Reagan.

Now I'll discuss Carter's use of
going public a little bit later but

first I'd like to describe my
methods of reconstructing history

through rhetorical means I
primarily use contextual.

Analysis of rhetorical moments of
the American presidency to reconstruct and

illuminates political events
related to the question of energy.

I chose the presidency because
while all politics may be local as

the late House Speaker Tip O'Neill used to
say the executive branch has traditionally

distilled the competing regional interest
of energy politics into a national

policy that gains voice to
the administration through my research

though my research includes rhetorical
analysis of presidential speeches.

I'm more interested in tying those
rhetorical acts to behind the scenes

events where policy formation and
speech writing intersect.

In other words I'm curious as to how well
the policy wonks get along with the speech

writers and how the presidents implemented
their policies the rhetorical me.

This is my main reason for

coming to the Carter Library to examine
the archival evidence of how policy and

rhetoric came together in
the president's energy proposals.

So in looking back at the Carter years we
must remember that he inherited a a lot of

economic woes and political baggage from
the administrations of Richard Nixon and

Gerald Ford anyone he was alive in one
nine hundred seventy three can tell you

how bad the gasoline situation was in
the winter after the OPEC in Barga yet all

of Richard Nixon's attempts to deal with
the issue including the first presidential

address to the nation on energy and the
first proposal of a windfall tax on oil

company profits soon became mired in
the all consuming topic of Watergate.

It took a worldwide recession after Nixon
resigned to bring oil prices down and

calm the troubled waters.

Yet even after the prices had receded a
host of think tank and government agencies

continued to conduct policy studies of
the energy issue as Martin Greenberger

as shown in his one nine hundred
eighty three book caught unawares.

These included
the Ford Foundation's energy.

Policy Project of nine
hundred seventy four and

the Project Independence evaluation
system also of nine hundred seventy four

which was formed in response to Nixon's
call for energy independence when Carter's

teams first began crafting its energy plan
they consulted many of these preserving

previous studies but during the one nine
hundred seventy six presidential campaign.

There were few indications that Carter
would place so much importance on energy.

He gave no major speeches on energy during
the campaign though he did point out that

the U.S. was the only industrialized
nation at the time without a comprehensive

energy plan nor did he mention energy even
in passing during his inaugural address.

But the winter.

In which Carter assumed office was
bitterly cold across much of the north.

You said Midwest.

It was made worse by severe shortages of
natural gas that forced many factories and

schools to close the day after taking
office quarter when briefly on television

asking all Americans to lower
their thermostats the sixty

five degrees during the day and fifty
five at night he directed the same for

all federal government buildings and
valve that the nation

needed a coherent energy policy that
would be formulated promptly and

week later while touring
Westinghouse plant in Pittsburgh.

He announced that his energy package
would be presented to Congress

by April twentieth.

That's locking the plants formation
into a very tight three month timetable.

The following week he took to the airwaves
to deliver to deliver his famous

fireside chat.

Now this talk covered several subjects but
Carter began by focusing on energy.

He repeated the April twentieth deadline.

He urged formation of the new
Department of Energy and

he talked about how his administration
quote must move carefully with full

involvement by the Congress allowing
time for citizens to participate

in careful study in order to
develop predictable long range pro.

Grahams that we can be sure
are affordable and that we know will work.

So I'd like to play play a brief
excerpt of the speech this

give you a sense of its tone
solicit take a look at that.

Now there are some other interesting
features of the speech but

for the sake of brevity I'd like to
move on by pointing out that all in all

Carter's first two months in office were
generally considered a success in terms of

communicating with the public in mid March
she began a series of these tell me all

across the country and after the first one
in Clinton Massachusetts Washington Post

columnist David Broder praised Carter for
achieving quote

a triumph of communications in
their arena of public opinion.

He has transformed himself from
the very shaky winner of the campaign

into a very popular president
whose mastery of the mass media

has given him real leverage
with which to govern.

So the architect of the quarter
energy plan was James Sless and

sure he was a Harvard trained economist
and a policy analyst who had worked for

years at the Rand Corporation
before serving as the head of

the Atomic Energy Commission and then the
CIA under Nixon that and just three months

before the one nine hundred seventy three
oil embargo Nixon appointed him secretary

of defense where you remain until he was
fired by Gerald Ford for his criticism of

Ford's The top policy with the Soviets
Slessor was a policy walk in the strictest

sense of the word he had a talent for the
large scale technical analyses that were

the foundation of public policy at the
time and with his own background in the.

Nuclear Engineering Carter shared Sless
injures interest in technical policy and

gave him carbomb to come up with
a comprehensive energy policy and

because of Carter's announced three month
timetable Sless major was able to persuade

the president to allow him to formulate
the plan behind closed doors keeping

many of the president's closest aides
in the dark until the plan was complete

what emerged out of a slush injures closed
or deliberation was a fairly complex

policy proposal whose main focus was to
reduce the nation's use of foreign oil

it sought to do so by a decreasing
inner G D B N three conservation about

maximizing use of domestic forms of
energy by converting from oil and

natural gas to coal The plan also
sought to buy up balance out cost and

benefits among a diverse set of
stakeholder holders ranging from oil

companies to the average citizen and
among the plan's many aspects the most

controversial ones where I will head
tax on domestic oil stiff taxes on

industrial use of oil and
natural gas and so-called standby tax

on gasoline whereby the tax rate
would increase five cents per year.

If decreased consumption
targets were not met so

shortly before the energy plan was
unveiled the president is of advisers

organized this really mass public
relations campaign to promote it with

the president most Cabinet members slated
to go out on the trail to give speeches

reportedly only one aide Jack what
Watson warned against this campaign

fearing it would undermine relations with
the Senate which in fact it later did this

campaign amounted to the president going
public before the House and Senate and

even had a chance to read the plan
much less waste opposition to it and

in retrospect it became the president's
first strategic blunder with the plan

complete Carter returned to their ways on
April eighteenth but unlike the fairly.

Upbeat fireside chat this talk had
a much darker tone as you'll note from

playing these lines listening to these
lines I'd like to play right now.

So let's take a little
bit of time to listen

control

us.
That's the guy as Mr there according to

Martin Greenberg or this darker tone in
the president's speech can be attributed

largely to internal
communication problems.

The plan Greenberger rides turned
out to be less of year than

color somber tone suggested the president
was trying to convince an electorate

called skeptical that there
really was an energy problem.

He did not mention At first
the provisions for tax rebates and

other economic cushions built into
the plan by the analyst who drafted these

analysts did not see the plan is all that
burdensome to the general population but

because of a failure of communication
with Carter's speechwriter their positive

perspective was expurgated from the April
eighteenth speech at a press conference

a few days later Carter began taking
up the plan's more positive aspects but

by that time various energy experts had
already begun their interpretations to

reporters and as a result the public
received a very muddled message about

the energy plan with success.

Headlines in The Washington Post over a
five day period reflecting what was going

on April nineteenth a headline read
energy the next day energy called not so

bleak as depicted two days later
energy plan now pictured as consumer.

So I've long suspected that part of the
reason for this communication problem was

that the speech writers were not included
in deliberations on the national energy

plan until the very end of the process
when their help was needed to communicate

the plan to Congress and in fact I pretty
much confirmed that this morning during

a meeting I had with an archivist
over the quarter a library but

I'm going back to find out more evidence
that what's going on beyond this summer.

There's another interesting rhetorical
feature in this particular speech that

is the way in which Carter call for public
sacrifice and I think is pretty important

to understand about why he really did
not connect with the American people.

Unlike the fireside chat when he said
that we do not need the sacrifice

the quality of our lives.

Carter calls for deep public sacrifice
of the speech multiple times

I want to play another short segment so

you can sort of get a sense of what we're
talking about here will be the last

there.

Strangely enough though.

If you go back and listen to this entire
ninety minute speech Carter never once

mentions what specific sacrifices he wants
the American people to mag even the more

upbeat fireside chat it asked Americans
to turn down their thermostats But

here the president talks
solely in abstract general or

generalities throughout the entire thing.

Two days later quarter
detailed the plan before

a joint session of Congress to
use a similarly dollar tone and

said that he didn't expect much applause
after he got through the speech and

he didn't receive all that much but
when Congress formally received the plan

two weeks later it became abundantly clear
that constructing the plan in private

had been a huge mistake as speechwriter
James Fallows explains and

I two hundred seventy nine article for
Atlantic magazine for some matters.

This approach made sense Fallows wrote
there were technically answers to such

questions as to how much solar
energy could be produced.

But the major decisions about energy
were political not technical slush and

to develop his technically plausible
energy plan in a political vacuum

submitting it to the scrutiny of
Carter Carter's other advisors and

the member of Congress only after all the
basic choices have been made close quote.

I will return to this notion of open
collective deliberation near the in the my

top but it should be noted here this
historians have pointed to a number of

other factors that created problems for
Carter's plan and

these include strong opposition from a
trench corporate interest a dysfunctional

White House management strategy
poor relations with Congress and

Carter's ineffective
rhetorical strategies.

Ousmane a brief time on each of these with
my primary emphasis on Carter's rhetorical

strategies.

Now promoting the energy plan.

Carter often complained about special
interests that were aligning against

including the oil companies and
utilities and

there can be no doubt that these
two economic sectors sectors were.

Really opposed to this plan.

Both industries launch a public relations
campaign is the counter of the president's

initiatives and they had strong lobbyist
in Congress protecting their interests

when the plan was taken up from the bad
but not all of the opposing forces were

corporate behemoths according to Russell
mater consumer advocate Ralph Nader was

an early critic of the plan who
complained of Carter's scare tactics and

said the president exaggerated the
sacrifices Americans would have to endure

environmentalists were generally
opposed to the plan as well because of

its heavy reliance on coal which they
felt would increase strip mining and

compromise clean air standards and

James fluke he was the president of
the consumer group energy action

even urged the president to withdraw the
plan and tiredly and start from scratch.

The following year rather than quote
submit to any more industry blackmail.

But at least part of Carter's problems can
also be attributed to how the White House

managed itself as Robert Thompson to show
Carter more than any president before him

employ what's called the spokes of the we
will organise a tional structure were kept

him in immersion administrative aides were
able to meet with him freely on a day's

notice without the filtering effect of
a chief of staff this type of management

which was inspired by and I teamed seventy
six book called organizing the presidency

gyde with Carter's ideal of a populist
presidency and his own style

decision making which valued a diverse
set of expert opinions but by most

accounts this management style just simply
did not work as a result in Midnight

hundred seventy seven quarter appointed
Hamilton Jordan as a modified chief of

staff which did a better job of regulating
access to the president's schedule.

The main problems with the spokes of
the wheel model was that it gave aides in

cabinet members unrealistic expectations
of access to the president and

resulted in information overload for
many of the press.

Staff Thompson says there were also
strong external perceptions whether

they were true or not that the management
style was largely responsible for

most of the administration's
policy failures up to that point.

Now after the plan was formally
presented to Congress.

House Speaker to bone needle
to get under his wing.

Despite his own personal problems with
some of Carter's aides particularly

Hamilton Jordan one of the strongest
House leaders I think we've ever had in

Congress O'Neill was able to consolidate
deliberations on the plan into a single ad

hoc committee which was crucial in
getting it passed through the house and

short order another contributing
factor was an August analysis of

the plan by the Congressional Office
of Technology Assessment

which had the following to say about it.

Executive summary the national energy
plans assessment of the world energy

crisis is accurate.

The problems are complex and
serious and there is little time for

fashioning new policies to respond
to them in the United States acts

now it may be able to reassert
control over its energy future and

prevent serious economic social and
environmental impacts in fact O.T.

A report call for even stronger
measures than those outlining

Carter's O'Quinn But
once the plane hit the city that

things got a little bit more complicated
the Senate passed most of the plans

measures in five separate bills
between September and not to act.

Despite the lukewarm leadership
of Senator Robert Byrd who

resisted the plan's private deliberations
from the very beginning but

when the plan went to conference committee
to iron out differences between House and

Senate versions negotiations bogged
down over natural gas regulation and

tax policy and opponents began to
gain traction those opponents were

led by Louisiana Senator Russell
Long An unabashed advocate for

the oil industry who used
his position as chair.

This in a finance community to
dismantle most of the plans

interview tax proposals negotiations
dragged on month after month and

it wasn't until October thirteenth one
thousand nine hundred seventy eight a full

the last day of the ninety fifth Congress
that a reduced plan passed both houses

a full eighteen months had passed since
the administration first in its plan to

Congress Scoop Jackson a quarter to
tractor in the end felt some sympathy for

president commented before
the final vote they quote you

have to wade through the Senate reception
area to get through all the lobbyist.

Now what survived that eighteen months of
congressional haggling well as this slide

shows there were five major areas of the
original energy plan there emerged intact.

The conservation section of the proposal
was the least controversial of cars and

though this proposal for
energy standards for new residential and

commercial buildings was not approved most
of the other conservation stuff to make it

through the tax credits and
utility rates had a really

great direct impact on individual
consumers and the coal conversion and

natural gas measures were really important
at the industrial level as well.

Now after the national energy
plan of course there was a lot of

couple years left in corners
administration he had other legislation

that I really don't have
time to get into today.

Instead I want to touch very briefly on
Carter's most memorable speech I believe

the nine hundred seventy nine
crisis of confidence speech or

the most days speech as the.

The press often called it though the
president never actually used that term in

the speech at all.

Twelve days before the speech
Carter had been scheduled to

give another talk on energy to
respond to surging oil prices and

long lines of performing
at the gasoline pumps.

But he canceled that speech at the last
minute ever treated to Camp David where he

called an average citizens and
political leaders

including one particular Arkansas
governor you may have heard of before.

To talk about his performance in office
and to discuss the state of the Union

on July fifteenth quarter emerged
to address a puzzled nation but

instead of a speech on energy we
actually got two speeches there was one

about Carter's perceived
nation spiritual crisis and

another one addressing
imminent energy issues.

Carter's approval ratings after this
particular speech rose fifteen points and

they had been in negative territory for

quite a while but two weeks later
they sank again when he called for

the resignation of his entire cabinet and
then turned around and accepted

the resignation of the most problematic
ones among these was slushing you're

the energy plan architect who has assumed
leadership of the new Department of Energy

only to find the task a little bit more
challenging than the first vision.

So following his speech rising oil
prices gasoline lines continued

the Iranian crisis hostage came about
the Soviets invaded Afghanistan

all of these foreign policy issues began
to crowd the president's schedule and

the way that he responded
to those in many ways

really cost of the election to
Ronald Reagan and I teenage.

But for all his political failings I
believe that Carter made some very lasting

contributions to our nation's
energy future more than his two

predecessors he made energy a serious
national political issue and was

the first to fully frame the complexity
of the issues that we're facing.

When it comes to energy.

Secondly I believe Carter and
his energy team were in deep recession and

understanding our long term need for a
copper and save energy policy even if they

may have overreacted to certain
events during their time in office.

We have inherited some very
beneficial policy tools from

the Carter years included trusted
data on energy production and

use from the DIA easy
Energy Information Administration.

As well as put the regulations that laid
the groundwork for cogeneration a grid

Tiger a new a bull's beyond these tools
the car was responsible for introducing

alternative energy technologies into
the nation's political imagination.

It was quarter after all who first brought
renewable energy to the White House

when he directed a solar hot water heating
system to be installed on the roof

the dismantled under Reagan's
administration in one thousand

nine hundred six this system was more than
mere symbolism at the time it inspired

many young people like me to believe in
the possibilities of renewable energies

in the end though Carter failed to connect
his ideas on energy to the political and

economic will of most Americans there
is perhaps no more telling evidence of

this than the words of the very last
person that corner quoted in the crisis of

confidence speech from those Camp David
sessions quote When we enter the moral

equivalent of we were Mr President
don't issue us B.B. guns.

So I think that was kind of telling there

not of Carter's problems though were
six again if again in my opinion

as the errors that he made in his
rhetorical strategies by most accounts

Carter was not a gifted speaker though
he did have his rhetorical moments.

Yet he never really grew comfortable
having speechwriters craft public messages

for him.

According to head speechwriter
James Fallows Carter had a lowest common

denominator sense of rhetorical audience
believing that his speech could be

understood by the average citizen and
that it was satisfy the in for

me information needs of all audiences
another speechwriter recodes Berg

says Carter preferred making decisions far
more than he did communicating to them to

the public and he had a habit of
removing the emotive or inspirational

language from speech drafts to fit his
own playing style of communicating.

But the.
Perhaps the most astute critic of Carter's

energy rhetoric is scholar Michael Malbon
who argues that Carter's cynical

view of why his plan was a opposed impeded
his ability to persuade on three different

levels of rhetoric in terms of bargaining
deliberation and appeals to the public

even before taking office Carter had
threatened to go directly to the American

people to a divide those special interests
that might block his legislation.

Just as he had done as
governor of Georgia.

But as we have seen Carter's attempts to
go public were often awkwardly timed and

not carefully considered in terms
of their political ramifications.

Additionally Malbon believes Carter
made two significant blunders in

his rhetorical dealings with Congress.

The first occurred during a May nineteenth
seventy seven private meeting with

Congressman in which quarter
backpedaled on the moral seriousness of

the energy crisis as outlined
in his earlier speeches.

According to a law Street Journal
article the president was quoted by

one congressman is saying quote until
seven weeks ago I thought the SEC replies

demanded of the American average
American family would be quite severe.

I no longer believe this is true.

The second occurred in
October seventy seven.

Shortly after the House and Senate
differences on natural gas deregulation

began to surface in Congress and several
strident public statements color publicly

implied that senators were being men
manipulated by the oil company lobbyist

not only did these statements
alienate he potential allies but

they were also badly timed as Slesin
juror was reportedly trying to negotiate

a private compromise with the major oil
companies at the same time but in the end.

Melba believes that Carter's rhetoric
was ineffective because he failed to

inspire the American public to
contribute in positive ways to his

program of energy transformation
Americans are not.

People who can be easily rallied under
a banner of store suffering rights

Melman they will accept sacrifice
if they have a purpose.

They like to be told what they can do
not what they cannot do they believe in

contouring nature not in suburban
to it in this Americans remain

a people of the in the light moment you
find it hard to accept the post-modern or

ancient view of a world
of limited possibilities.

President Carter failed to persuade the
American people because he did not connect

his inner G. program to the passions and

beliefs around which Americans
can be rallied his comprehensive

program faded because it was not
comprehensive enough close quote.

Now I've thought a lot about why

Carter was unable to connect with
the American people on energy myself and

I've come to the conclusion that many of
his problems can be attributed to a lack

of what rhetoricians call practical
reasoning or political judgment.

This was known by for
a by the ancient Greeks and

had to go reasoning is
is a difficult concept.

It's different from the sort of scientific
technical knowledge that slush injures

teamwork privately to fashion into
an energy policy and just ninety days

instead practical reasoning is as juror
a journal Houser puts it the collective

reasoning process that is the basis for
extrapolating public opinion.

Now when Hauser talks about public opinion
he's not talking about the type of public

opinion polling they Carter political
consultant Patrick Caudill did quite often

for the White House over the course of
Carter's four years in office his policy

team learned a lot about public opinion
through empirical means and it still

did them little good nor is Hauser talking
about some kind of hobby Masi in model

of rational deliberation among going to
whiten citizens in the public sphere and.

Ted Hauser sees political practical
reasoning as the basis for

the understanding of how moral to pool.

Politically engaged public's use of
a knack you grow language to quote

express thoughts beliefs and
commitments to which a significant and

engage segment of the populace holds
attachments that are consequences.

Consequential for choices
individuals are willing to make and

actions they are willing to support and
shaping their collective future.

Now that's a mouthful I know.

So let me unpack a little bit
more what I'm talking about here.

Remember my earlier quote from
speech writer James Fallows who

believe that the administration
made a really huge mistake

by formulating this plan in
private without knowing it.

Fallows was attributing the plans failure
to a lack of practical reasoning that

rhetorical alchemy that emerges
from our collective reasoning about

political problems with
indeterminate solutions in

an uncertain future in my opinion
that was the biggest failure

of the Carter administration
in regard to its energy plan.

It was trying to take scientific
technical information developed in

a politically controlled climate and
transfer it wholesale into a messy and

unpredictable public sphere
without a rhetorical roadmap and

by the time they figured out the problem.

It was too late to correct it.

So what kind of lessons can we
take away from these Carter years.

Well as I mentioned in my opening
history does seem to be rhyming in

the New York Times a few months ago I
ran across this quote here from well

known energy consultant Daniel Yergin
there's an opportunity here says to

address energy needs in a way that
hasn't been possible for decades.

It feels like we're picking up from where
we left off in the one nine hundred

seventy S. but
he continues research resources are going

to be constrained and spending on energy
will have to compete for dollars.

It was spinning on the financial
crisis and two wars.

It's hard to believe we're
still fighting two wars.

Also this past week we've heard
a lot from the pond more than I ever

thought I would hear about anything about
President Obama's political gifts we all

know that he seems pretty knowledgeable
about energy issues in my opinion.

He's got some impressive people on his
team addressing energy and climate change

his rhetorical abilities are legendary
though I will add there is a view

difference between campaign speeches and
presidential rhetorical leadership.

He has knowledge though brief of
the inner workings of Congress and

what he doesn't know
Vice President Biden knows in spades.

He has an incredible amount of goodwill
among the American people right now but

how long that's going to last in
these uncertain economic times is be

anybody's guess.

So the spike history riming

I say that today is distinctly
different from the Carter years.

The biggest difference of
course in my opinion is climate

change which began some time
ago in the scientific technical

sphere as a deliberative issue
of uncertain pop probability and

as emerged in the past five years as a
political issue with increasing certainty.

The big question before us now is how
this global environmental concern will

affect the inattention to energy industry
issues that has historically occur when

oil prices plunge the past thirty years of
energy policy have been an intermittent

collective deliberation on how our
technological society plans to sustain

itself and the primary mechanism that has
controlled the public urgency of those

deliberations has been the waxing and
waning of crude oil prices that has been

the pattern for more than three decades
now and it will be interesting to see of

that pattern continues as climate change
gains more traction as a political issue.

There are also signs that.

That the current economic downturn may be
different from those of the recent past

that could be good or bad faced with
insolvency the American automobile

suddenly is willing to furiously retool
under a green mandate of better.

You know mileage standards and alternative
fuels and the stars may be realigning when

it comes to our dependence on oil at
least in the transportation sector but

hard times may also impact our ability
ability to switch to alternatives.

What good is a Chevy Volt and
no one has the money to buy one.

So the most hopeful sign to me though
is that the solar and wind technologies

are much more mature today than they
were in the one nine hundred seventy S.

California and other progressive
states now have in place technical and

regulatory structures that demonstrate
the ability of renewable energies to

contribute significantly to peak
loads on the grid Obama's pledge

to double renewable energy production in
three years is a very bold initiative that

could inject new life into a fledgling
industry whose survival has depended for

years on inconsistent tax credits
as President Obama said subset.

There seems to be no shortage of public
advice on how he should approach energy

politics and policy.

Ever since the election.

I've been sort of tracking these
using a google news e-mail alerts to

see what's coming.

Pouring in across the political
spectrum so based on my knowledge

of past presidential energy policy and
its rhetorical implementation.

I want to provide my own advice to
President Obama though I harbor

no illusions that he will
ever follow my counsel So

my first one here is to say first
of all don't develop an energy

plan by closed doors didn't work for
Jimmy Carter.

It didn't work for Dick Cheney and
it's not going to work for you.

So provide leadership over
the deliberative process but don't want.

Out Even your most venomous detractors it
will only strengthen their resolve and

it also cuts you off from
the more people perspectives and

political bias that are necessary for
sale policy given Obama's

post partisan pragmatism I don't think
we're going to have to worry about this

the next one is get your speechwriters
involved in policy formation early

in the process are rhetorician skilled
invention and Iran chairman of ideas has

a lot to offer any a deliberative process
prior to its public crystallization

Obama has an incredibly close relationship
with its head speechwriter John favor

a perhaps the closest since Jack Kennedy
and Ted Sorenson and we can only hope that

relationship leads to tighter integration
of policy formation and communications

third don't go public unless you really
need to and you're absolutely certain what

you expect from the American people seven
rhetoricians in historians believe that

corner misuse this crucial aspect of
presidential leadership to the point where

it lost its effectiveness of
course it's difficult for Obama.

Not to go public today when the media
hangs on every single word he says but

that honeymoon is going
to be over very soon and

we're going to he's going to need to very
selectively choose when he's going to

directly address the American people and

fourth get the public involved in doing
something positive not limiting them.

One of the problems with corridors
energy plan was that it framed energy

conservation and
efficiency in negative terms.

What would happen in this country if we
turned in or G. efficiency into a reality

T.V. show so that programs like
extreme make over Home Edition focused

on putting solar panels on people's
houses and slashing kilowatt hours.

Green is suddenly trendy in today's
political climate and we need to find ways

creative ways to sustain that trend
in the future and finally fifth.

Don't be in too much of a.

Hurry climate change makes
our need to act on energy

much more critical than in the past but

unless we take the time to collectively
deliberate on our energy future.

We could make some serious
mistakes that won't

be supported by the American people
good deliberations often take time.

Are very time consuming but we've got
to get it right this time we can't

afford another thirty year delay
in addressing our energy problems.

Thank you thank you.

And if you're wondering
what these are right here.

I was telling Rebecca I got
this off the Dio You Web site.

These are millions of copies
of gasoline rationing coupons

that were printed by the government toward
the end of Carter's administration and

they were of course never issued submit
they're still sitting here at a warehouse.