In Politico Magazine’s recent article, “Oil Prices Are Dropping. So What?,” Energy Innovation CEO Hal Harvey and 14 other energy thought-leaders provided their opinions on how the recent drop in oil prices will affect America’s economy, security, and politics. Hal’s remarks from the article are reprinted below:

A chance to make cars more efficient

The United States has, for 40 years, wasted its treasure, national security and environment in what George W. Bush called an addiction to oil. We sent trillions of dollars to countries that do not like us and devoted massive military forces to nations that otherwise would not merit a mention. A combination of more efficient vehicles and domestic oil development has finally allowed us to drop that yoke. But as oil becomes cheaper, we need to capture this moment, or we will be back in a harness.

To turn this moment into a permanent geostrategic advantage, we need to accelerate the nascent reinvention of the auto—and of trucks. After a truly dumb 25-year plateau in auto fuel efficiency (which set our car companies up for bankruptcy), we have tightened standards, which is finally making the industry serious about new, more efficient technology. Read the car journals today, and you will be amazed at the new engines, drivetrains, electronics, aerodynamics, light-weighting and even tires that can keep us free of petro-ransom. Better trucks are next in line. There is also more room to improve electric vehicles, which will give us, for the first time in history, the chance to have competition between transportation fuels. That augers well for consumers and for our national strategy.

This is a rare gift, almost a half-century in the making: We can save hundreds of billions of dollars, cut unnecessary dependence on Mideast nations and prevent huge amounts of pollution. The track is simple: Keep the auto and truck efficiency efforts going. Keep the technology dynamic at full force. Continuous improvements, driven by strong standards, can finally give us geostrategic freedom.

Hal Harvey is CEO of Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology LLC.

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This content was originally published in Politico Magazine’s article, “Oil Prices Are Dropping. Now What?“