Jul 11 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Bill Salisbury Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

After leading the nation's governors on a track toward cleaner energy for the past year, Gov. Tim Pawlenty predicted Thursday that the United States will take another five to 10 years to "put a dent in" its dependence on foreign oil. Meeting the nation's energy needs will require massive investment in developing a wide range of new technologies.

"There's no silver bullet," Pawlenty said in an interview as he prepared to leave today for the four-day National Governors Association summer meeting in Philadelphia, where he will surrender his title as NGA chairman.

His chairman's initiative for the past year was titled "Securing a Clean Energy Future," and he said the governors produced a "ton of activity and results" on the energy front. Many took steps to conserve energy, develop alternative fuels and accelerate research into clean energy technologies.

But that has not significantly reduced energy consumption or the nation's dependence on foreign oil, he said.

"The energy crisis is one of the defining issues and challenges of our time," he said. It affects people's ability to afford groceries, get to and from work, heat and cool their homes and enjoy the fun things in life "like going up north fishing."

"If there's a silver lining in an otherwise very challenging situation, it's that the country now is sufficiently riled up to where people are willing to attack it boldly and aggressively," he said. "That will lead to, I think, new policies and a better

future for our country."

He thinks the nation's worst problem is its addiction to foreign oil.

He said it affects national security and economic stability and growth.

"I feel really strongly that we have to Americanize and diversify our energy sources," he said "We're going to have to do lots of different things ... aggressively develop and deploy alternative energy in the form of wind, solar, biomass, biogas and geothermal.

"We need some technology breakthroughs in the area of clean coal ... We have to reopen the door on nuclear. And we're going to have to tilt real hard into the RD side as well."

He didn't mention offshore drilling for oil, a favorite fix for many Republican candidates. But when asked about it, he added it to his list.

"We're going to need it all," he said.

That expansive approach has set him apart from many of his more conservative Republican colleagues, at least when it comes to energy.

The main solution to the energy crisis will be vehicles, he asserted. "If we can transition over the next 10 years to a point where most citizens are driving plug-in (electric cars), hybrids and flex-fuel or at least high-fuel-efficiency cars, that's when we will reach a tipping point where the pressure on oil prices will stabilize and maybe even subside a bit. But we've got to get to that point."

Pawlenty said he was lucky last year to pick as his initiative an issue that is "now a raging national debate."

The NGA produced a four-page list of meetings, reports and actions governors have taken in the past year to implement his clean energy agenda.

"Whether we caused any or all of that is debatable," he said, "but I think we encouraged and nudged people along."

While energy consumption increased during his term, he said, "it would have been worse" without the governors' conservation efforts.

The governors reached a consensus, he said, on three of the four components in his initiative: conservation, alternative energy and research and development. But they failed to agree on what to do about greenhouse gases, he said. Governors from energy-producing states opposed his goals for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

"It's far better to deal with that on a national level," he said. Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama and most members of Congress want to reduce greenhouse gases, and governors are waiting to see what they do about it next year.

It's an NGA tradition for chairmen to monitor progress on their initiatives for a year or two after they give up the office, so Pawlenty plans to continue to promote clean energy.

But last week, he was elected chairman of the Education Commission of the States, so he plans to devote more time to national school policies next year.