Environment isn't left vs. right issue, ex-official says

NORFOLK

Former CIA Director James Woolsey drives an electric hybrid car. Solar panels help power his Maryland home, and green batteries store electricity in his basement.

"On a good day, I can see my meter going backwards," Woolsey said of his household energy bills.

Speaking at the inaugural Blue Planet Forum, a new lecture series focusing on the big environmental issues of the day, Woolsey said political "hawks" and "tree-huggers" have more in common on energy policy than either side would care to admit - and should work together, not apart.

Hawks, he said, champion alternative energy sources because they mostly worry about terrorists striking America's energy supply or disrupting Middle East oil shipments.

Environmentalists, on the other hand, champion alternative energy to fight global warming and cut carbon emissions. "They leave the terrorists for us in the intelligence community to handle," he quipped.

His hourlong address at Nauticus, the downtown maritime museum, included an imagined tete-a-tete between the ghosts of environmental patriarch John Muir and maverick World War II Gen. George Patton, in which Woolsey plays both roles.

In their conversation, Muir convinces Patton that it would be smart, from a national security perspective, to invest in energy conservation, heat and electricity cogeneration, electric cars with flexible fuel capabilities and the conversion of coal to liquid fuel.

For his part, Patton wants to protect the nation's power grid, as well as add two more divisions to the U.S. Army.

It is a conversation that the political right and left could - and should - have today, Woolsey said.

His speech highlighted what event organizers hope will be a free, A-list lecture series to educate and engage Hampton Roads residents on environmental policies and subjects.

The forum is co-sponsored by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Nauticus and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and is meant to replace the Green Breakfast, a more laid-back gathering of local environmentalists that organizers decided to drop this year.

The next subject of the Blue Planet Forum - climate change and the Chesapeake Bay - is scheduled for July 31, when NOAA administrator and retired Vice Adm. Conrad Lautenbacher comes to town.

Woolsey has been like that hawkish tree-hugger during his career.

Working for two Democratic and two Republican administrations, culminating in his CIA directorship under President Clinton, Woolsey has favored hardball foreign politics and energy independence.

He now favors Arizona Sen. John McCain for president, a Republican, and especially likes his position on global warming.

McCain, like Woolsey, endorses a "cap and trade" program, in which the government would set a limit on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions allowed in any given year, and then industry could sell, buy or trade carbon credits as long as the overall cap number is not exceeded.

He compared such emissions to "smoking six packs of cigarettes a day."

"You're not sure you're going to get lung cancer," Woolsey said, "but you sure raise the risks."

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com