Three weeks ago The Wall Street Journal kicked off a debate on how best to allocate scarce resources to solve the world's problems. Bjorn Lomborg offered a summary of the latest findings from his Copenhagen Consensus project, where he has enlisted some of the world's top economists to address the issue. Now we're offering views on the subject from top political and business leaders. How would you spend $10 billion of American resources (either directly or through regulation) over the next four years to help improve the state of the world?

How would I spend a hypothetical $10 billion? I can't help noting, at the outset, that it's not just a question of priorities. It's also a question of fiscal responsibility. After all, President Bush managed to turn a projected $5.6 trillion budget surplus into a projected $4 trillion deficit in less than eight years. So unless we're willing to make some tough fiscal choices, the money we're talking about will have to remain highly hypothetical.

But if I had the cash on hand, and had to choose from the list of worthy causes, I'd focus on one issue: energy.

A dramatic investment in clean energy would be the most effective check on aggressive petroregimes from Moscow to Tehran. It would be the best long-term solution to global warming. And energy independence is the most effective step we can take for American families staggering under the burden of high gas prices.

That's because the forces that have produced this summer's record prices are not going away. We are facing skyrocketing world demand for an ever-shrinking quantity of oil, and unless Congress figures out a way to amend the laws of supply and demand, that fundamental fact is not going to change. This is a large-scale problem, and it's going to take large-scale solutions.