Tom Daschle. former Democratic senator from South Dakota and Senate majority leader in 2001-2002, is a distinguished fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.

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I came from a week in my hometown, Aberdeen, S.D. After more than 10 inches of rain fell in less than three hours, my mother called to tell me she had a foot and a half of water in her basement. Everything in town flooded. They had boats in the streets for the first time in my lifetime. Some of the weather experts called it a 5,000-year flood.

It won't be 5,000 years before we see the next one.

The strength of that storm — like so many others — was increased as a result of changes in our climate. Increased ferocity and frequency of storms, destruction of our coastlines, melting of the glaciers and devastation of communities around the world are among the repercussions of our fossil fuel dependency.

We simply have to find better, cleaner sources of energy.

The alternatives are here: wind, solar and geothermal energy, bio-fuels and more efficient use of energy. The leadership and policies on the national level are not.

When you realize that a single, 90-square-mile solar development in Arizona could electrify America, you see what the solar potential is. And the Front Range of the Rockies is a veritable Persian Gulf of wind energy. South Dakota has enough agricultural productivity to produce more energy than all but one OPEC country.

States in the Rocky Mountain region are driving the national debate on energy. According to a new report commissioned by Western Progress, a regional policy institute, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Montana have adopted standards requiring at least 15 percent and, in most cases, 20 percent renewable power in less than 20 years. All the states in the region provide tax credits, deductions or exemptions to stimulate investment in alterative energy.

Such policies have triggered investment in renewable energy. As they address the energy challenge, Western states also are recognizing opportunity in the form of economic development and jobs.

Yet it's impossible for us to create a national energy program from one region or 50 state capitals. We've seen a lot of progress in the West and from many states, but we have little to show for the lost opportunities over the last seven or eight years in Washington, D.C.

The federal government could do its part:

● First, solar, wind and geothermal entrepreneurs have been hindered by uncertainty in the investment climate. They tell me that if we could have a five- or 10-year Production Tax Credit, we could send a strong message about the commitment the federal government has to new energy.

● Second, we also have too much electrical power that can't get to where it needs to go. We've got wind and we've got solar that could be captured in the West, but we can't get it to Los Angeles or Chicago or Miami or Washington. Unless we build a new transmission infrastructure, we're never going to get it there.

● Third, it's time we make ethanol not just a gasoline additive but a gasoline alternative. If the Congress guarantees a minimum amount of demand — 60 billion gallons by 2030 — we can get there, using traditional ethanol and next-generation cellulosic ethanol from wood chips, grasses and, someday, even municipal waste.

● Fourth, we need to begin accounting for the carbon and climate risk of fossil fuels in the price of our energy, and the most transparent and efficient way to do just that is to establish a carbon tax, whose revenues will be dedicated to investments in the new energy technology.

● Fifth, we should not prolong the inevitable imposition of a system to cap and trade greenhouse gas emissions. It will be an economic engine the like of which we haven't seen, a potential just beginning to be appreciated with the voluntary cap-and-trade system we have now at the Chicago Climate Exchange.

● We have to use energy more wisely. Californians use half the energy the rest of America does — and its economy has still grown more than 10 percent in the past five years There's no reason why Americans can't conserve one of every five units of energy we're using today.

We can do this if we understand the urgency — and the opportunity. Lehman Brothers recently noted there'll be two kinds of businesses in the future: those that understand the opportunities presented by climate change and alternative energy production, and those that don't.

It's up to us. It depends on whether we're willing to follow the kinds of things that are being done in Arizona, Colorado and Montana today. It has the potential to be bigger than the technological revolution of the last two decades — and that one started in the West, too.