A Conversation With Barack Obama

Are you going to take the toughest of the policy approaches that have been proposed?
In order to actually get something passed, we're going to have to get the stakeholders involved and recognize, "Look, this is a painful process."

These are tough guys with billions of dollars at stake.
But look, the oil companies are still going to be making money. Here's my point: Whenever you transition to a new technology or a new way of thinking about structuring our economy, the old is going to resist the new. The key is to make the new profitable, job-generating and appealing enough that more and more people embrace the new and let go of the old. That's where government can play a role. If we institute a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, that's going to generate billions of dollars. Now, that's also going to mean higher electricity prices for consumers, so a huge chunk of that has to go back to consumers in the form of rebates, so they don't feel the pinch as badly. That's point number one.

Point number two is we'll put $15 billion a year into alternative energy. We want to give encouragement to existing utilities, existing energy companies, to invest in solar and wind and biodiesel. When you have a guy like T. Boone Pickens, who made his money on oil, investing in wind farms, that's how you can start getting the alignments to bring about change. On the other hand, if you think you're just going to shove this down their throats without any consideration for their economic interests — not just the big players but the workers who have jobs at risk or those who need to worry about their electricity bills — then people are going to be resistant.

You've been a big supporter of ethanol. But studies show it doesn't do anything to reduce global warming, it's actually a less efficient way to produce energy than gasoline, and it's contributing to growing food shortages worldwide. Are you going to continue to back it?
Corn-based ethanol I see as a transitional technology. We've got to invest in alternative fuels.

This one is ranked as pretty bad.
I understand, which is why we're going to have a transition from corn-based ethanol to cellulosic ethanol, not using food crops as the source of energy.

So you foresee this coming to an end.
What I foresee is us transitioning into other ways of developing these energy sources. The fact that we had corn-based ethanol, and that industry has matured, provides us with distribution networks and infrastructure that can ultimately be used for other ethanol sources.

In Dreams From My Father, you recount the bigotry your parents faced because of interracial marriage, which was illegal then. What is the difference between that and the current bans on gay marriage?
Well, I'm always careful not to draw easy equivalents between groups, because then you start getting into a contest about victimization or who has been discriminated against more. What I'll say is that I am a strong believer in civil unions that would provide all the federal rights under federal law that a marriage contract would provide to people. I think that the country is still working through the idea of same-sex marriage and its entanglement, historically, with religious beliefs.

My sense is that a consensus has already established itself that when it comes to hospital visitation, the ability to pass on benefits like Social Security, that people shouldn't be discriminated against, everyone should be treated equally. I think that is a starting point — that consensus is what will grow over time. If you want to use the analogy of the civil rights movement, Dr. King and others didn't lead with assaults on anti-miscegenation laws. They focused on voting rights and civil rights. Once those rights were secured, the culture shifts.

The War on Drugs has cost taxpayers $500 billion since 1973. Nearly 500,000 people are behind bars on drug charges today, yet drugs are as available as ever. Do you plan to continue the War on Drugs, or will you make some significant change in course?
Anybody who sees the devastating impact of the drug trade in the inner cities, or the methamphetamine trade in rural communities, knows that this is a huge problem. I believe in shifting the paradigm, shifting the model, so that we focus more on a public-health approach. I can say this as an ex-smoker: We've made enormous progress in making smoking socially unacceptable. You think about auto safety and the huge success we've had in getting people to fasten their seat belts.

The point is that if we're putting more money into education, into treatment, into prevention and reducing the demand side, then the ways that we operate on the criminal side can shift. I would start with nonviolent, first-time drug offenders. The notion that we are imposing felonies on them or sending them to prison, where they are getting advanced degrees in criminality, instead of thinking about ways like drug courts that can get them back on track in their lives — it's expensive, it's counterproductive, and it doesn't make sense.