Fresh ideas: U.S. needs to adopt an energy bill now

Remember the story about Nero fiddling while Rome burned? Well, our government is doing the same. As I write this, in the worst environmental disaster in American history, up to a million gallons of oil a day are spilling into the Gulf of Mexico and washing up on Louisiana's coastal wetlands.

Yesterday a colleague sent me an article detailing how most of the wind energy development being done right now in the United States - some of the projects partly funded by our tax dollars - is being done by foreign companies: Gamesa in Spain; Vestas in Denmark; Suzlon in India.

And in a speech at the opening of a solar manufacturing facility in California, President Obama said, "Fifteen years ago, the United States produced 40 percent of the world's solar panels - 40 percent. That was just 15 years ago. By 2008, our share had fallen to just over 5 percent."

The leading global manufacturer of solar panels today is China.

We do continue to lead the world in one thing: energy consumption. We've all heard this statistic by now - Americans constitute 5 percent of the world's population but consume 24 percent of the world's energy.

So what does all this point to? That our country has a glaring, irresponsible lack of a coherent energy policy. It's no accident that the biggest wind companies are European and solar manufacturers Chinese. Almost every other country in the world recognizes the critical importance of alternative energy development, energy conservation, and the challenge of global warming, so they have energy policies.

Not us. We continue to debate, in our tea-party way, the role of government and whether there's any need for it at all, while other nations pull ahead in alternative energy development and crude oil washes up onto our shores.

Last week a couple of persistent senators (Kerry and Lieberman) finally got around to introducing a comprehensive energy and climate bill. Apparently Democrats and Republicans alike think it doesn't have much chance of passing because Americans would rather talk about immigration, brutal midterm elections and, uh, almost anything else.

Does the Deepwater Horizon disaster leave you as heartbroken as it leaves me? Do you wonder what you can do? You could drive less and ride your bike more, always a good idea. You could go to Louisiana and clean oil-soaked birds. You could boycott BP. Or, you could tell our senators to stop posturing and support a comprehensive energy and climate bill. Maybe we can join the rest of the developed world in having a responsible energy policy. Maybe eventually we'll have our own homegrown Vestas and Gamesas.

• Anne Macquarie, a private sector urban planner, is a long time resident of Carson City.