Medea Benjamin: US Response and Public Power

Terrorism, the US Response and Public Power

Medea Benjamin

What do the September 11 terrorist attacks have to do with San Francisco's upcoming public power initiative, Proposition I? A lot, actually.

If Prop I passes, San Francisco will form a municipal utility district (a MUD) like the ones that have helped Sacramento and Los Angeles keep their rates low and their service reliable. Our MUD -- and every MUD it inspires around California and the country -- will also help ease tension in the Middle East. Here's how:

For at least the past 50 years, US foreign policy in the Middle East has focused on controlling our access to the region's vast oil reserves. The Bush/Cheney energy plan, for all its talk of energy independence, keeps us dependent on Middle Eastern oil. Why? Roughly two-thirds of the world's proven oil reserves are in the Persian Gulf. After Canada, the largest source of US oil imports is Saudi Arabia. Iraq, even under the crippling US sanctions, is the our fifth largest oil exporter.

It's not only about oil, but natural gas -- the Achilles heel of the California energy system. Remember, it was the spectacular rise in the wholesale price of natural gas this year that made our rates soar. Governor Davis' "solution" to California's energy crisis -- throwing up dozens of new power plants that all run on natural gas -- only makes us more reliant on fossil fuels.

In our desperate search for more sources of natural gas, US and other Western companies have embarked on ambitious natural gas projects in countries from Saudi Arabia to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and Yemen.

Afghanistan also fits into the picture as a potential transit route for oil and natural gas exports from Central Asia to Pakistani ports on the Persian Gulf. Companies such as UNOCAL have tried to negotiate multi-billion-dollar oil and gas pipelines through Afghanistan. But the continuous fighting in Afghanistan, coupled with Western pressure campaigns over the Taliban's human rights abuses, put these plans on hold.

With the US so heavily dependent on "cheap" Middle East energy, we have built up a massive military presence in the region to "protect our interests." US troops, planes and weapons have been stationed in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, while the US Navy's Sixth Fleet has prowled the Gulf on virtually permanent assignment. This military presence has incensed many Islamic fundamentalists, especially when the US stationed troops near the holy sites of Mecca and Medina during the Gulf War. Terrorists responded with brutal attacks, from the car-bombings at US military installations in Saudi Arabia, to the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, to the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. And now, the inexcusable and horrific September 11 attacks.

So how do we break the vicious cycle of energy dependence that contributes to bad foreign policy decisions, which inevitably make us vulnerable to terrorist attacks? With the Bush/Cheney "fossil fools" at the helm, we can't expect this independence to come from the top down. After all, Big Oil gave $26 million to the Republicans in the 2000 election precisely to keep us on the fossil fuel treadmill. Our independence must come from the bottom up -- city by city, county by county, state by state.

That's why the public power initiative on the November 6 ballot, coupled with solar energy initiatives Prop F and H, are particularly fortuitous. If we are able to take our energy system out of the hands of a corporation focused solely on profits -- PG&E -- and put it in the hands of the community, we can make a commitment as a city to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. We can make a commitment as a city to focus on clean, renewable energy such as solar, wind and geothermal. We can become a model for other cities in California and around the country that want to control their own resources. And in the process, we will not only have both cleaner air, but we can promote foreign policies that put the needs of people and the environment above our voracious appetite for more and more resources under foreign soil.

Medea Benjamin, Founding Director of Global Exchange, is a candidate for the Municipal Utility District Board in Ward 4.