Lethal Trajectories (38 page)

“Clayton, this is Jack. Hope I didn’t wake you, but you were pretty adamant that I should call you the minute my meeting was over.”

“Jack, I’m so glad to hear your voice. First of all, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry. The meeting went great, and I’ll tell you all about it when I get back to the embassy. I assume you’re still at your VP residence?”

“Yes I am. Maggie and all of us came back here for the night, but we’ll be moving into the White House today. I’ll be meeting soon with Pete Canton to go over the oil rationing and climate-change plan he’s working on, and we’ll be meeting later in the Situation Room to go over the latest on Safe Harbors. I’m leaving for the Oval Office shortly, but can you call and fill me in before you meet with Wang Peng?”

“Will do. Oh, one other thing,” Jack asked.

“What’s that, Jack?”

“This has been one hell of a ride so far. Thanks for taking me along.” Jack hung up and took a deep breath; his roller coaster ride was just beginning.

C
layton McCarty breathed a sigh of relief after hanging up from his call with Jack. He’d had a restless night worrying about him, but the opportunities opened up by a relationship with Prince Khalid were now replacing his concerns.

He left Number One Observatory Circle for the last time and was driven to the White House for his first full day of work in the Oval Office. Yesterday he had worked in the Situation Room and his VP’s office following the swearing-in ceremony, so this was really his first opportunity to do a solo exploration of the nooks and crannies of the marvelous office and the history it represented. He enjoyed his first look into the small room President Burkmeister had called Shangri-la and decided he would adopt both the name and purpose of the room as his own.

A million things raced through his mind as he sat down on the big chair behind his desk. Two envelopes awaited him there. The first was a sealed envelope with a White House logo, and the second was a large manila envelope marked “Top Secret—For the President’s Eyes Only.” He opened the small envelope and immediately recognized his predecessor’s handwriting.

The thoughts this inspired of his friend and mentor were interrupted by a tapping on the door. It was his secretary, Marilyn Coyle, and she entered the room with a big, infectious smile.

“Good morning, Mr. President, and welcome to your new office. I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am and how happy I am to have moved with you to the Oval Office.”

“Thanks, Marilyn, but it was a no-brainer. I couldn’t live without you when I was vice president, and that goes double now! Did your move go well? Did Ginnie Mogenson have a chance to familiarize you with the routines over here?”

“She did, Mr. President. Both Ginnie and George Gleason were so helpful in showing me the ropes. Hopefully, I’ll get the hang of things around here in short order. Can I get you anything, Mr. President?”

“I think I’m okay, Marilyn. What does my day look like?”

“Your first meeting will be at eight o’clock with Peter Canton, and it’s scheduled for one hour. The next one is at nine with CIA Director Mullen, and then Treasury Secretary McMasters at nine thirty. Your Situation Room meeting starts at ten, and I’ve left the rest of the day open for it. Oh, yes, don’t forget the family lunch we’ve squeezed in for twelve thirty. Off the record, I think Melissa and Amy have a little surprise for their daddy, but they swore me to secrecy.”

“Thanks, Marilyn; it’ll be our little secret. By the way, good luck to
you
in your new job. We’re in the big leagues now, kiddo.”

As the door closed behind her, Clayton opened the second envelope on his desk. It contained the Morning Book supplied by the Situation Room. The intelligence report was a grim reminder that he was no longer just a participant in the problem-solving process. He now
owned
the world problems, lock, stock, and barrel; there was no escape. Burkmeister’s note suddenly took on an entirely new level of clarity.
He was telling me to stick to the things that matter most, and the other issues would fall into place. Good advice,
he thought.

Just then, Marilyn Coyle tapped on the door and said “Peter Canton is here to see you, Mr. President.”

“Peter, c’mon in and join me for a cup of coffee,” he said with enthusiasm.

“Thank you, Mr. President, and may I say I like the looks of your new office?”

“Thanks, Peter. You and I have been together for a lot of years, and I hope you get used to this office because I know we’ll both be spending a lot of time here in the future. Now, tell me about the gas rationing and climate-change plan you and your people are working on.”

Peter pulled his chair closer to the president’s desk and wasted no time in launching into his summary.

“We’ve developed what I think is a workable plan that can be phased in without completely disrupting the economy. We can’t finalize it until we know what Jack is able to work out with the Chinese, but I can give you the highlights. I’ll start with the gas rationing part. The plan is to spread the sacrifices across all sectors of the economy. No one is exempt.”

Clayton started to ask a question, but then stopped. “Go ahead, Peter, please continue.”

“The American economy is struggling to deal with its consumption of seventeen million barrels of oil per day with sky-high oil prices. In a perfect world, our economy would use even more than the twenty-one million barrels we consumed daily in 2007, but that’s a thing of the past. The Saudis and their allies have taken 20–25 percent of the world’s oil off the market, and economic engines everywhere are slowing down. Roughly speaking, we’re looking at a supply drop from seventeen to thirteen million barrels a day. That’s a lot of oil to suddenly remove from an already oil-starved nation, and it’s the new reality not only for us, but also for all but a handful of other nations.”

“You’ve got my undivided attention, Peter, please continue.”

“Here’s the plan, Mr. President: We are proposing an oil-rationing plan that will impact all sectors of the economy, but some more than others. In essence, it will involve cutting back by 11 percent from current consumption levels on all aviation jet fuel, distillates used for diesels and trucking, and liquefied gas and pentane fuels. The plan calls for a reduction of 21 percent in oil used for lubricants, industrial purposes, etc., and here’s the big one—it will require a 34 percent reduction in motor fuel for private use.”

“Ouch, Peter! Isn’t there some way we can take a bigger bite out of other sectors and save a little more for private usage?”

“Yes, Mr. President, everything’s on the table. But let me explain our dilemma: almost a half of our total fuel consumption—roughly 8.2 million barrels out of the 17 million barrels we use daily—is used for cars, light trucks, and motorcycles. By comparison, distillate usage is about 3.35 million barrels and jet fuel about 1.25 million barrels. Any cuts to the reduction rates for cars, with their larger base rates of consumption, would require disproportionately higher cuts from distillates and jet fuels, with their lower base numbers. Fuel reductions for cars will cause consumers pain, but further reductions in aviation and distillate fuels would have a devastating effect on the entire economy.”

Clayton nodded and said, “I buy that logic, but what would a 34 percent reduction mean to the average driver?”

“Mathematically speaking, Mr. President, it means decreasing our consumption of gasoline from 343 million gallons per day to 226 million gallons. That’s a decrease of 117 million gallons. Now, if you figure there are 235 million drivers in America, and you divide the gallons of gas available by number of drivers, the per-capita average would decrease from 1.46 gallons per day per driver to about 1.00 gallon per day, or seven gallons per week. If a car got 30 miles per gallon, the new ration would give the driver 210 miles of driving per week.”

Peter continued as the president scribbled down numbers.

“While this is, in principle, a fair and equitable way to address the challenge, it will put a severe hardship on rural residents, resort owners, and others relying on drive-in business. For city dwellers with access to public transit and recourse to alternate forms of transportation like bikes, it’s far less of a sacrifice. It will spell an end to family road trips and the sense of mobility so deeply ingrained in the American psyche. Changing the expectations and behaviors of the American people will probably be our greatest challenge.”

“I suppose we could work out some system of credits for hardship cases, but I get your point,” Clayton replied, pondering the political ramifications.

“There are a number of things we can do, Mr. President, and we should be able to work out a system of rationing credits, much as we did in World War II. Clearly, the airlines will suffer, as will collateral businesses feeding off business and vacation travelers. The trucking industry will get clobbered; others, like the railroads or public transit systems, will benefit.”

It was a lot to digest, but Clayton appreciated Peter’s logical approach. “How would you propose administering the rationing system?”

“The concept of rationing is not new to Americans. During World War II we rationed gas, oil, tires, sugar, meats, coffee, and what have you. It was implemented in a hurry, and typically involved using rationing stamps as de facto currency. There was, of course, a black market, and people found ways to game the system, but overall it worked remarkably well.”

“It’s amazing what Americans were able to do when faced with a challenge of this magnitude, wasn’t it, Peter?”

“It was indeed, Mr. President, and maybe that’s one of the reasons we call them the Greatest Generation. Today, of course, we have the technology to build a much better apparatus for implementing a rationing system. We would envision, for instance, the issuance to all eligible drivers of stored-value cards that track the gallons of gasoline used against the amount available. Drivers would simply swipe their cards, as they do now while getting gas, and be eligible to receive whatever amount they choose up to the maximum limit, at which point the pump would shut down. There might even be trading mechanisms whereby frugal users could sell their quotas to those needing more gas—such as those rural drivers I mentioned.”

“How long would it take to implement this system, and how do we pay for it?”

“To answer your second question first, Mr. President, we could fund it out of an additional gas tax of, say, one to two cents per gallon. The cost of the plan’s administration and infrastructure should not be borne by the consumer other than through this gas tax. As for an implementation timetable, I would think we could have it in place by January 1, 2018, assuming we get the green light within the next few days.”

“What happens in the meantime, Peter?”

“I don’t take what I’m about to say lightly, Mr. President, but the first stage of rationing has already begun, in the form of the prices at the pump. Pump prices are hovering in the $9 per gallon range today, which is already steeply reducing consumption. It’s a traumatic, inequitable, and unsustainable system, but it will reduce gasoline consumption in the interim. Spot shortages are now occurring as drivers top their tanks today in fear of empty pumps tomorrow.”

Clayton rubbed his eyes vigorously and then replied, “Again, I agree with you, but it’s an ugly scenario for average Americans. They’ll soon be pressuring their elected representatives for a quick fix—one that really doesn’t exist.”

“There are a couple of things we can do, Mr. President, to make it more palatable. First, the CIA report was quite clear on the metrics of drawing down our 422-million-barrel strategic petroleum reserve to supplement import shortages, but the drawdown would buy us a little time and ease the transition to the fully rationed environment we envision.”

Clayton thought about this approach, knowing it would buy America a few months. But he also knew there would be other demands on the SPR from Japan and other countries.
And maybe even our own military if we get into an extended war,
he thought. The thought was too awful to contemplate.

“What’s your other idea, Peter?”

“We might want to consider an immediate reduction in federal payroll taxes for the American worker. It could be means-tested or adjusted for location or industry, but the idea would be to give the American people—at least on a temporary basis—a larger amount of take-home pay through immediate tax relief. It could be used to help pay the higher gas prices and, perhaps, leave a buck or two for discretionary spending. It would have to be simple, direct, and immediate. I’d also consider tax credits for employers hit with higher operating costs due to fuel prices, but it would have to happen quickly in order for them to maintain internal cash flow.”

“Peter, with your ability to make deals, you should’ve been a politician. My hat’s off to you and your staff, and I like where you’re going with it. Now, where do we stand with the climate-change part?”

“We’re working equally hard, Clayton, er, I mean, Mr. President, on the climate-change component. We’ll have a strategic outline ready for your address to Congress, but the metrics and other fine details won’t be ready until year-end.”