[christianmiller]

STOP BUYING OIL FROM OPEC. We cannot bring peace to the Middle East. We cannot force Afghanistan to be a democracy. Let us do something we can do. Stop buying oil from OPEC. We can do it now. Compressed natural gas (CNG) cars. Iran does it. So can we.

We still import 4 million barrels per day from OPEC. But now, we have the capability to stop all oil imports from OPEC within 60 months. We have low cost natural gas and low cost technology for converting cars to operate on CNG. This program would convert 65 million vehicles (23% of our fleet) to (CNG). Cost $98 billion. The other part of the program is to build 10,000 CNG refueling stations. Cost $20 billion. Total $118 billion. All the costs will be money spent on U.S. labor and material. Use of low cost natural gas will save us about $80 billion per year.

The program can start immediately by presidential order to convert the 600,000 federal non-military vehicles to CNG. Theses are shovel/wrench ready projects. Total cost: less than $5 billion.

This CNG program is not like the Manhattan Project that involved large technical uncertainties and risk. CNG technology is commercially available in the United States. Iran now has 2.9 million vehicles (23% of its fleet) operating on CNG.

The collateral benefits are manifold: cost savings; reduction in trade deficit; employment for 100,000 Americans; reduced CO2 emissions; low technical, commercial and environmental risks; progress that can be accurately measured; plus no political party would find it objectionable.