Business Books Author plots cure to America's oil addiction

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - MEMO TO MY FELLOW AMERICANS, FROM YOUR PRESIDENT: We're still hooked on oil more than three decades after the first supply shocks caused long lines at the pump and the only real cure can be found in alternative fuels.

That's the premise of author David Sandalow in his new book, "Freedom from Oil: How the next President can end the United States' oil addiction" (McGraw-Hill, $26.95).

Energy challenges are dire, as Sandalow notes. The United States still relies on oil for 96 percent of its transportation fuels and the daily oil fix is growing -- averaging almost 21 million barrels of crude a day, a fourth of global oil demand.

The book begins with a memo from the next president (Sandalow doesn't divulge who he's got his money on for 2008) to top advisers, asking for input for a televised speech that will spell out how the country will end its reliance on oil within a generation.

Sandalow is familiar with the memo method of policymaking. He served as an assistant secretary of state and with the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton.

What follows are more memos, each one making a short chapter, in which presidential advisers offer solutions.

The energy secretary, for example, says the problem lies not in America's reliance on foreign oil imports. "The fundamental problem is that we have no substitutes. Only when we set a goal of providing all drivers with a choice of fuels will we have a chance of ending dependence on oil."

That's close to what the Bush administration's current energy secretary, Sam Bodman, told a high school chemistry class in Alexandria, Virginia, this week. "We need to figure out ways to replace oil," he said.