Post 5

America’s dependence on foreign oil is a very vast issue. For that reason, there are many ways that one can look into “fixing” our dependency. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the two campaigns I mentioned earlier, Woolsey and Pickens, in regards to how they are framing their campaigns and are appealing to their audience.

To wane America off of foreign oil, the Woolsey plan proposes remaking the entire auto-industry so as to make it more fuel-efficient. Unlike the Pickens plan, this does not exactly target alternative/renewable energy advocates, which is an interesting choice, however, it is aimed more towards the government. Ex-head of the C.I.A., Woolsey has ties to the political world, and specifically calls for the Obama administration to provide tax incentives to car companies who choose to remake the way they make things. On paper, this plan looks good to the average reader; more efficient automobiles, less money spent on gas, no large-scale re-construction of the nation’s power system, what’s not to love? However, for change to occur, and for this plan to truly take action, the auto-makers have to jump on board. The fact of the matter is though, tax incentives or not, it is very unlikely that many car companies will be willing to adhere to a government mandated revamping of their entire manufacturing process. If Woolsey could find a way to make his plan more viable for the car industry to adopt, it would be a vastly more realistic solution to our nations problem with foreign oil.

T. Boone Pickens, an ex-oil man himself, puts a slightly different spin on his approach to the foreign oil problem. Whereas Woolsey only targets the auto industry for reform, Pickens proposes a more wide-sweeping plan of action. Here, we would be looking into renewable energy sources, hydrofracking, and replacing traditional gasoline in automobiles with natural gas. By making his plan touch on so many possible solutions to the foreign oil problem, Pickens is able to appeal to a wider audience than Woolsey. The problem Pickens might face from those who support Woolsey, is that he his being too hopeful with alternative energy sources. Woolsey and his followers argue that we have yet to develop the technology to make wind energy entirely cost effective.  

As a whole, I’d say that both plans are similar to a certain extent. The biggest difference is that the Pickens plan just has a larger frame to work with than the Woolsey plan does.

Speech Preparations

Since “alternative energy” isn’t exactly a problem, it’s hard to write a persuasive speech about it. For that reason, I have decided to take a slightly different turn for my term paper speech. I will know be speaking to persuade my audience that the United States of America needs to become less dependent on foreign oil. I plan on listing the multiple reasons that foreign oil dependency posses a problem to our country, such as ecological damage, economic damage, and even matters of national security.

There are two major plans for waning our reliance on foreign oil, one proposed by Robert Woolsey, and the other by T. Boone Pickens. The thing that really caught my eye about Woolsey’s plan is that it really does not advocate alternative energy off the bat. He believes that the technology to make alternative or renewable energy a viable replacement for foreign oil is still too expensive to be a realistic consideration. Instead, he advises that we should re-build the transportation industry. Require cars, trucks and busses to become more fuel efficient, build them with lighter materials so that they need smaller engines and less gas to run, and ultimately start spending less money importing foreign oil into our nation. I really like the idea of remaking the auto/transportation industry, though; I’d like to see this plan also at least make an attempt at establishing some sort of alternative energy source.

The plan proposed by T. Boone Pickens does just that, which is why I think this is the campaign that I am going to chose to advocate for in my speech. Under this plan, we would pursue many forms of alternative energy, most prominently wind energy, while also making a change to the transportation industry. What Pickens proposes is that we use wind energy to create electricity. The electricity that we create from the wind would be sufficient enough to replace the electricity that we currently derive from natural gas. After we free up some of our natural gas reserves, we would re-allocate it towards the transportation industry. Fueling our cars, commercial trucks, and/or busses with natural gas would have a direct impact on our dependency for foreign oil.

In my speech, I will frame the Pickens plan as being the best of both worlds. Not only does it call for reform of the transportation industry, but it also hopes to create new sources of domestic renewable energy. With the changes brought on by the Pickens plan, many jobs would be created for American citizens, and we would make a dent in the spending we use on imported oil, therefore, this plan may be just the plan we need to help get our economy back on track, as well as solving the problem of foreign dependency.