Las Vegas Sun – Next Battle is For an Energy Plan

3/18/08

Retired general says it’s security issue, but greens won’t like his business-backed ideas

Washington — The general who led the Marine Corps during the run-up to the Iraq war is now working on national security from another angle: trying to convince the next administration that the country needs a comprehensive plan for energy.

Gen. James L. Jones, who retired last year after 40 years in uniform, strode Tuesday into Washington’s posh Hay Adams Hotel for breakfast, a place near his new office where morning coffee goes for $4.75 a cup. It was the morning before the five-year anniversary of the Iraq invasion.

Jones still looked very much a Marine, with his close-cropped hair and his mostly steel-straight frame under a charcoal pinstriped suit. He settled in for eggs and grits.

Securing the nation’s energy future — that is, dealing with the stubborn reality that worldwide demand for power and fuel will eventually outpace supply — is an initiative the next president “has got to have up there at the very top,” he said.

Jones has been meeting with the presidential candidates in his new job at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s just-launched Institute for 21st Century Energy. “The United States right now is seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution,” he said. He wants to reverse that.

Even though Jones no longer wears the uniform, he is still often called on to assess the national defense situation. The questions turn to those that might be asked of a military man.

The flow of oil from Iraq was supposed to finance that country’s reconstruction, but remains below prewar levels. The price of a barrel of crude has soared to record highs, above $100.

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