Because of its unusual electromagnetic properties, the recently discovered element bikinium would be used to multiply the output of current generating stations. Eventually it would become a source of power itself. The automotive industry, which had been sitting on battery technology for years because it wasn’t profitable, would be forced to fully develop electric cars. At the end of the President’s ten-year schedule, half of all vehicles sold would have to be electrically powered. He’d said that the technology was there; America just had to have the courage to use it.
The President had given the nation a tough challenge, and they seemed eager to accept. The people were galvanized with the same sense of expectant optimism that President Kennedy generated when he promised to put a man on the moon. Environmentalists saw the glorious end to fossil fuel’s rapacious destruction of the ecology. Economists agreed that the transition period would be difficult, but the ban on oil imports would help end the nation’s decades-long trade imbalance. Technocrats were eager to see the emerging technology that would wean America from her dependence on oil. And the State Department was thrilled to see the Middle East’s diplomatic trump card, the threat of another oil embargo, taken away from them.
Within a few short weeks of his plan, political reality reared its ugly head.
The world’s seven major oil companies, known collectively as the Seven Sisters, have a combined economic power larger than many industrialized nations. They knew their largest market was about to vanish, and they began to exert their massive influence. In what amounted to economic blackmail, the Seven Sisters began bumping up the price of gasoline in ten-cent increments until it had nearly doubled. Then, they quietly made it known within the beltway that prices would continue to rise if certain concessions weren’t made. The President was realistic enough to know that the oil giants could spiral the global economy into a slide that would make the Great Depression seem like a boom time.
By pulling in every political favor he had acquired during his terms in the House and Senate and making promises that would take the rest of his term to honor, the President pressured Congress to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration. The millions of acres of virgin tundra on Alaska’s north coast just east of Prudhoe Bay were the last major source of domestic oil and one of the most delicate ecosystems on the planet. The Arctic refuge was known to hold oil deposits many times larger than those found at Prudhoe, and it was a prize that the Seven Sisters had wanted for years. That was the price the Sisters demanded for their cooperation, and that was what the President got for them. The bill had been quietly tucked in with other legislation only minutes before passage, forestalling any debate on the floor. Environmental lobbyists and activists never knew what was happening until it was too late.
Environmental concerns had always blocked earlier attempts to open the Refuge to exploitation. However, the President had no choice but to sweep those aside, knowing that he had negotiated for the lesser of two evils. He knew that no matter how many precautions the oil companies took in their scramble for this new source of crude, the land would be destroyed virtually forever. But he also felt that it was a small price to pay if his new policy led to a cleaner life for the rest of the country and eventually the world.
He never expected the severity of the uproar when the nation learned of the deal. Overnight, it seemed every citizen became a champion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. People who couldn’t find Alaska on a map suddenly started spouting off statistics about the damage that oil exploration would do to the wilderness. Posters, T-shirts, and talk show guests materialized out of thin air. The arctic fox and the polar bear became immediate media sensations; hours of programming chronicling their plight choked the airwaves. Thundering herds of caribou raced across television screens night after night while serious-voiced commentators described how they would be nearly extinct within eighteen months of the first oil rig start-up. People were outraged, and dozens of environmental groups burgeoned after the President’s announcement.
Boycotts of the oil companies that had been granted drilling licenses erupted across the nation. The hardest hit, Petromax, started legal proceedings against several groups, including Greenpeace, for organizing the protests. Greenpeace welcomed the media attention a pending trial would generate. They wanted to send their ship, the Rainbow Warrior III, into Prince William Sound as an act of defiance, but she was stationed in the South Pacific to protest the latest round of French nuclear tests.
What had started as a chance to finally cure many of America’s problems turned into a pitched battle that was dividing the nation as nothing had since Vietnam. Like so many hard decisions, everyone saw the Energy Direction Policy as a good idea, but no one wanted to pay the price for its success.
The President and Secretary of Energy Van Buren had weathered the storm together, both shouldering even more criticism as now, almost a year later, men and equipment poured into the wildlife refuge to begin spudding, the start-up procedure for drilling. People seemed to forget about the benefits of the President’s moratorium on oil imports. All that mattered was the protection of the Arctic tundra and its inhabitants, even if that meant another generation of smog and acid rain and greenhouse gasses.
“I’m not even going to ask if we’ve done the right thing,” the President remarked tiredly, for he’d covered the issue a million times before. “I know I’m right. We need to wean ourselves from oil. Period. At our present rate of consumption, the planet will run out by the middle of this century anyway, so why not be prepared for it? Europe and Japan will be screaming for our clean technology, and we’ll hold all the cards. Doesn’t anyone see that this is for the best?”
Connie Van Buren had heard all of these arguments before and said nothing. Though not well known to the general population, the Department of Energy was a favorite lobbying spot for the Seven Sisters and all the other oil concerns. She had come under even more pressure than the President. But with a forbearance found only in women, she had taken the criticism and complaints in stride, while keeping an open ear for the President to vent his frustration.
“The long-term benefits of what I’ve proposed far outweigh the destruction of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and hell, it isn’t a foregone conclusion that the animals there will be wiped out like the doomsayers predict.”
That last statement felt sour to the President’s ears even as he spoke it. The flora and fauna of Alaska’s north coast were found nowhere else on earth and were so delicate that even the most minor damage was virtually permanent. Arctic moss required a minimum of a hundred years to recover from the passage of even a light vehicle. Once the rigs and pipelines and all the other support structures were built, the land would never come back.
“But, Christ,” the President continued, his voice thundering, “it’s a small price.”
Connie threw up her hands in mock defense. “Remember, I’m on your side.”
“I’m sorry.” He smiled ruefully. “It’s just the pressure. How in the hell do you handle it?”
Connie laughed. “I just remind everyone that America’s nuclear arsenal falls under the Energy Department’s jurisdiction. I tell them that I control over twenty thousand warheads and I’m prone to PMS. That seems to back them off.”
The President smiled tiredly. “What’s the latest from the native rights groups?”
The rights of Alaska’s native people had become a hot topic as well. Connie shifted in her seat, resting her knife and fork on the china plate still heaped with congealed eggs and soggy bacon. “They’re relatively quiet so far. Because they lack the international exposure of the big environmental groups, the native advocates are keeping a low profile to see how far the administration is willing to back up this initiative. Though I just heard Amnesty International is threatening to call the entire Inuit population political prisoners of the United States if we continue to infringe on their rights to the land.”