The importance of oil to the U.S. economy is beyond dispute. Oil provides 40 percent of America's primary energy needs, more than any other fuel source.7 In large part, this is due to the scale and dynamism of the U.S. transportation sector, which consumes nearly 14 million barrels of petroleum each day-more than the total oil consumption of any other nation in the world.  Americans enjoy a flexible, mobile lifestyle, and it is powered almost exclusively by oil. Our cars, trucks, planes and ships rely on oil for 94 percent of their fuel, and there are no meaningful substitutes currently available at anything remotely approaching scale.  In 2008 alone, the United States spent more than $900 billion on gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum products.

This heavy reliance on petroleum has created unsustainable risks to American economic and national security. The economic risks are all too clear:so long as the cars and trucks that power our economy are dependent on a single fuel source, the majority of which is produced in hostile nations and unstable regions of the world and the price of which is increasingly volatile, our economy is at the mercy of events and actors largely beyond our control.  

The fundamental factors that contribute to the increasing-and increasingly volatile-price of oil are likely to persist over the long term. Between 2007 and 2030, the International Energy Agency expects world oil demand to grow by 21.2 million barrels per day (mbd), with fully 100 percent of the increase coming from developing countries.  Rising demand for energy in China and India in particular has added anew dimension to the global oil consumption picture.   With burgeoning middle classes and rapidly expanding economies, both nations appear poised to provide consistent pressure on world oil suppliers. In the mean time, resource nationalism, political insta