Would come if we mandated that by a certain date all the land based vehicles of the U.S. military and Federal government were fueled by something other than oil.

So there are a lot of difficult things involved in such a mandate. There would have to be real cost oversight with the power to cancel wastefull contracts, the lobbyists would have to be kept out of the decision making process. I can just imagine the cost over runs and delays given the current system.

An argument may be made that no alternative fuel vehicles can perform the way oil powered ones do, and so our military is placed at a disadvantage, still does anyone expect the U.S, to fight a major war involving tanks in a big way anymore?

Foriegn companies should also be allowed to offer contracts, providing they base production facilities in the U.S. and share technologies to permit use by the general public.

I prefer direct mandates to implied mandates because their meaning is less likely to be misinterpreted. Obviously, there will be attempts to twist the meaning of anything to suit some affected party. For instance, a government like the current one might contract with Westinghouse to produce nuclear hummers or some such. Even the best of mandates would have to be monitored.

I would, if I could, direct the government to engage in a longterm program to install solar farms and wind farms on public lands and sell the generated power into the grid. This action would not only increase the grid power available, but should also drive down the unit cost of solar collectors (provided that the government purchases don't overrun manufacturing capacity), making them more economic purchases for those to whom a local source is more practical. In many cases, it should be possible to have multiple land use: for instance, windmills can easily coexist with grazing, especially if some portion of the power generation could be used to pump irrigation water over hills, etc. Solar collectors, if they do not have a 100% fill pattern, could provide partial shade for crops which could not grow in the full sun of some southern areas. Here too, some of the available power could be used to pump irrigation water.

I've been looking into buying up cheap property out in the country and covering it in solar panels. At current prices there just isn't any payback in it unless there are government subsidies or some other financial incentive.

At the moment it looks like wind power has a better chance of being cost effective/profitable.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see how the technology pans out and hope for higher efficiency PV panels soon.

Collectors with efficiencies up to 40% have been demonstrated. I don't think the wait would be nearly as long as waiting for oil from ANWR to hit the market.