Sen. Barack Obama yesterday joined an A-list panel of business, labor and education leaders at Carnegie Mellon University in a wide-ranging conversation on the roles of energy innovation, education and infrastructure improvements as foundations of prosperity.

"If we remain dependent on oil from dictators, we'll endanger our security, imperil our planet, pay more at the pump, and sit on the sidelines while the jobs of the future are created abroad," the Democratic presidential candidate said as he opened the event before an invited audience in a CMU gymnasium.

"If we can't give every child in America the chance to get a world-class education, we'll cripple their ability to make a living in a knowledge-based economy and watch China and India move ahead in the race for the 21st century."

Mr. Obama was flanked on the stage by a baker's dozen of luminaries, including G. Richard Wagoner Jr., the chairman of General Motors; a Nobel laureate, and the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The assembled talent proved almost too much of a good thing as the need to include comments from so many distinguished voices on an array of complex subjects worked against the ability for any of the individuals to speak at much length or depth on any of them.

There was clear consensus on the panel over the need for the United States to diversify its energy supplies, invest more in basic research and improve education.

Mr. Wagoner nodded in approval as the candidate described the universal preoccupation with gasoline prices on the campaign trail.

"We now need to move to a phase where we diversify the sources of energy we use in our sector and in others," Mr. Wagoner said. He noted the pace of innovation in biofuels, hybrid technology and battery power while encouraging federal support for basic research in all of those areas.

Mr. Obama suggested limiting greenhouse gases with a cap-and trade system in which industries would pay for and trade rights to exceed specified emission levels.

Panelist John P. Surma, the chairman of U.S. Steel, noted, however, that a cap-and-trade system -- variants of which have been proposed by both Mr. Obama and his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain -- should be crafted carefully to avoid increasing costs on U.S. industries in a way that creates unintended incentives to shift employment to countries with lax environmental standards.

Vinod Khosla, a venture capitalist who was a founding executive of Sun Microsystems, offered the most optimistic assessment of the nation's energy future. While joining MIT President Susan Hockfield's call for increased support for basic research, Mr. Khosla contended that innovations now within sight held the promise of a post-petroleum world of cheaper alternative energy.

Eli Broad, a philanthropist active on education issues, was one of several panelists calling for drastic improvements in the nation's schools. He argued that American students' class days and years should be lengthened and achievement standards toughened.

Other members of the panel included Lael Brainard, vice president of the Brookings Institution; Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of Harlem Children's Zone; Steve Case, chairman and CEO of Revolution Health and the former chairman and CEO of America Online; Susan Castillo, superintendent of public instruction, Oregon Department of Education; Federico Pena, former U.S. transportation secretary and former U.S. energy secretary; Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union; Harold Varmus, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center who won the Nobel Prize for his research on cancer genes; and retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones, the president and CEO of the Institute for 21st Century Energy, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Jones, a former Marine commandant and supreme commander of NATO, who appeared with Mr. McCain at one of the Republican's events earlier this month, has been mentioned in speculation potential vice-presidential choices for both major candidates.

The panelists were united in calling for more federal support for education at every level.

"When it comes to how we need to retool America to continue its greatness, we've got a lot of stuff that we can agree on ... ," Mr. Obama said as the nearly two-hour event drew to a close. "There is surprising consensus in this country about what needs to be done -- somehow our politics prevent us from acting on that consensus."

Post-Gazette politics editor James O'Toole can be reached at jotoole@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1562.

THE ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE