We have the tools to get off oil. Why haven’t we used them?

U.S. PIRG’s Matt Casale and I recently authored an op-ed in The Hill calling for common-sense steps to cut oil demand in the face of OPEC’s decision to slash global oil supplies.

For 50 years, there has been only one real solution to periodic oil crises: reducing our dependence on petroleum. It’s a topic we addressed in the Frontier Group report Getting Off Oil in 2011, summarized in the tweetstorm below.

Today in @thehill, @matthewcasale_pirg and I ask the heretical question: What if we responded to oil supply shocks by first addressing demand?

In answering that Q, it's useful to look back at the failure of U.S. energy policy over the last decade.🧵https://t.co/4FjhUEeBpC

— Tony Dutzik (@FrontierTony) October 24, 2022

The actions included accelerating the roll-out of plug-in vehicles, ramping up vehicle fuel economy, bolstering transit and walkable development, and engaging in aggressive building energy efficiency programs. 3/

— Tony Dutzik (@FrontierTony) October 24, 2022

They also would have delivered massive ancillary benefits – cleaner air, less global warming pollution, fewer spills and leaks from fossil fuel infrastructure, safer streets … the list goes on and on. 5/

— Tony Dutzik (@FrontierTony) October 24, 2022

Many other beneficial opportunities to reduce oil consumption were either left on the table entirely, or were rolled back or delayed by the Trump administration. And as oil prices dropped, our resolve to transition off oil waned. 7/

— Tony Dutzik (@FrontierTony) October 24, 2022

What America *did* do over the last decade was to emerge as the world’s largest oil *producer*, fueled by the rise of environmentally damaging, wildly unprofitable, financially unsustainable fracking. 9/ https://t.co/pQMlUMCNPk

— Tony Dutzik (@FrontierTony) October 24, 2022

There is a way out, and it’s the same way out that we had the chance to take a decade ago (or, for that matter, 50 years ago): Reduce our demand for oil.
Current efforts to phase out gas cars in places like CA and to incentivize EVs will help. 11/

— Tony Dutzik (@FrontierTony) October 24, 2022

The last decade shows that if the goal is to liberate Americans from vulnerability to oil price spikes, “supply-side” solutions won’t cut it. We have the technology and the tools to get ourselves off oil. We need to use them, starting now. /end

— Tony Dutzik (@FrontierTony) October 24, 2022