Energy Independence and the Moonshot

Senator Obama has made remarks that getting the United States energy independent is going to be a similar effort to 1960's effort to land a man on the moon. Although the two are very big tasks, I'd like to highlight some key differences. First, look at JFK's original mission statement:

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

It's a simple statement, but it gives a soft deadline of "before this decade is out" (meaning 1970). At the time, this was unthinkable because we were just getting off the ground with our own space program and a lot of the technology required had not been proven. JFK set the bar very high within an aggressive time frame. Senator Obama should create a mission statement for energy indepence framed in the same way JFK did.

Second, the United States was in a race with the Soviet Union. We had competition that we had to keep up with and surpass. We had an opponent that was easy to measure up against. As far as I (an average layperson) understand it global warming has bad consequences, but what is the point of no return? I'm looking for a credible group to step up and say if we don't cut XYZ by A% by the year 2020 then start buying more sunscreen. What is the opponent here?

In closing, I wonder what a mission statement would look like for Senator Obama's energy indepence goal. Hopefully it could be something brilliant and well balanced as JFK's moonshot mission statement. I'm sure if elected Senator Obama will craft and promote a more specific statement, but why not deveop one and release it now?