A while back I cooked up this bright idea, and our recent hydrogen
thread reminded me of it.  Any thoughts?

There is a lot of talk among the political types about energy
independence, while that is mostly a pipe dream it is insane for a
country as great as the United States to let itself up in a position
where regimes as warped as Iran's and Venezuela can put our economy at
serious risk. While we can't be totally energy independent any time soon
we can get ourselves in a position where a major disruption in supplies
from other parts of the world won't seriously damage our economy.
Toward that end I offer my own energy plan, it offers incentives to
reduce our imports, increase domestic production, and provide abundant
supplies of clean, inexpensive electricity.

1. All taxes on the production of domestic oil and natural gas are to be
repealed, and all expenses used for that production are to be tax free.

2. ANWAR and all other government controlled sites are to be opened for
exploration and development, including off shore. All current
environmental protections are to be followed.

3. The EPA's regulations on fuel and oil production will be scrutinized
by a panel made up of scientists and engineers from the oil, auto and
environmental industries to simplify the rules to a level an average
American can understand. The use of boutique fuels will be eliminated.

4. Any lawsuits brought about as a result of this program will be dealt
with on a loser pays basis; if the lawsuit is deemed to be frivolous the
loser will be required to pay twice the expenses incurred by the defendant.

5. Starting one year from the enacting of this program all imported oil
will be subject to a tax of the difference in price between the price of
the imported oil and the price of equivalent domestically produced oil
plus 10%.

6. Proceeds from the import oil tax will be used to create a fusion
fund. That fund will be built up for a period not to exceed 5 years, the
proceeds of that fund will be awarded in total to the whomever devises a
practical, commercially viable fusion reactor.

7. After the 5 year period is past the fund will build for the next five
years and be used to reward anyone who can devise a practicable method
of making an economical, clean, non-petroleum based transportation fuel.

8. After 10 years the tax on imported petroleum products will expire.

After this program has run it's course we will have the ability to
produce clean, virtually unlimited supplies of electricity, we will be
well on our way toward getting off the "oil teat", and we will have
developed our supplies of oil and gas enough so that any disruption of
our foreign sources will be an inconvenience and not a disaster. We will
also have developed our resources in the careful way we can do it now,
instead of in the panicked way we would do it after a serious long term
disruption from one of our major suppliers.

After all is said and done America will be cleaner, richer, more secure,
and we could very well be energy independent!