Decrease Foreign Oil Use

I believe most people can agree that the U.S. Energy Policy needs to be overhauled. Before we can come up with solutions, we need to know the history of the energy policy. The fact is that the policies have been strengthened and weakened from one presidential administration to another.

As far as energy policy in the United States goes, it has been rather turbulent over the last several decades, or at least since around the time of the Nixon Administration. The fact of the matter is that the U.S. has been dependent on foreign oil ever since that time and it is not known when things will change. Now that a new president has taken over people are even more hopeful that things may change, but whether or not this will happen remains to be seen. It is apparent that the last seven administrations have not been able to render us free from foreign oil use. It seems that every time an administration would try to take a stance on the energy crisis, a new administration would come in and try to undo or alter what the previous administration had done. This can be seen through the last seven administrations.

In response to an oil embargo, President Nixon took the very first step in U.S. history to give comprehensive national energy planning. He established the Federal Energy Office in 1973 and then established the Federal Energy Administration. The FEA was "given the authority to initiate federal policy and take whatever steps the White House deemed necessary for national energy needs" (Kubasek, 2008, p. 341). In addition to the establishment of the FEO by Nixon, Congress also created the Energy Research and Development Administration "to consolidate all federal energy research in a single agency" (p. 341). Until he resigned in 1974, "Nixon continued to urge legislation designed to increase the federal role in energy management" (p. 341). President Nixon did propose a significant amount of laws which restricted public and private energy consumption, and he used powers given to him by Congress "to impose mandatory allocations of selected fossil fuels" (p. 341). Also, Nixon and Congress put national daylight savings time into effect and set the 55 mile per hour speed limit as conservation efforts. There was also funding of research into solar energy and encouraged the private development of nuclear energy. Nixon also created Project Independence which would ensure "that the U.S. would be able to meet all of its own energy needs" (p. 342). It is unfortunate that many of these proposals were technologically impossible.

After Nixon, Ford took over. While he did not do as much as Nixon had, he still had an effect on energy policy in the U.S. The energy crisis continued right through the Ford administration. In 1975, he focused on his Energy Policy and Conservation Act. This package of measures focused on programs that were meant to give the administration the flexibility to handle energy problems. The Act created the strategic petroleum reserve which was meant to prevent the oil embargo that occurred during the Nixon administration (Kubasek, 2008).

After Ford came Carter. Carter put the subject of energy policy number one on his agenda. It was only a month after he took office that he put his National Energy Plan (NEP) in the open. Over 200 proposals in relation to the NEP were reviewed by Congress and many were defeated. Many people believed that the program was too complex. Even so, Carter had made some big changes to the federal energy policy. Under his administration, the Department of Energy (DOE) had been formed, "domestic gas and petroleum prices had been decontrolled," (p. 342) there was increased federal spending for research into new energy technologies, and there were more environmental safeguards put into place.

While the previous three presidents appeared to take at least some initiative on the energy situation in the United States, Ronald Reagan tried to alter almost everything that had been previously put in place. Under the Reagan administration, the energy policy had been changed drastically. It appeared that things returned to the preembargo days at the beginning of the Nixon administration when all that anyone cared about was an abundance of energy. Reagan went as far as to try to abolish the DOE but Congress would not allow this. Instead the DOE's authority was reduced. During Reagan's reign, funding for energy conservation programs and research for renewable sources of energy was cut down significantly. Apparently the Reagan administration did not put energy policy as a top priority (Kubasek, 2008).

After the return to the preembargo days of the Reagan Administration, G. H. Bush took over the oval office. He appeared to place a higher priority on the U.S. Energy Policy. . The year 1990 signaled the invasion of Kuwait which may have been partially responsible for the awareness of the danger of dependence on foreign oil. In 1991, G. H. Bush put forth his National Energy Strategy. It was an attempt to put equal emphasis on new energy production and conservation. While some believed that the NES was a success, some believed that some of the success attributed to the NES came from the CAA amendments of 1990. Some of these successes were "creating the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium, developing ethanol from biomass and waste, upgrading a DOE research facility to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and developing the National Technology Initiative" (p. 343). Just two months after the introduction of the NES, "Bush issued an Executive Order on Federal Energy Management" (p. 343) and was expected to save taxpayers up to 800 million dollars in annual energy costs and cut federal energy consumption by 100,000 barrels of oil per day. Sure enough, success came from the Executive Order as energy use in federal buildings was cut by 20 percent in 1999 when compared to 1985 levels. The NES and the Executive Order led to the signing of the EPAct of 1992 which attempted to structure the U.S. energy policy (Kubasek, 2008).

When President Clinton took over after Bush, it appeared that he would also take some initiative in the area of energy. The Clinton administration's energy policy (Executive Order 12902 and 13123) was centered on the reduction of energy use, particularly through voluntary programs. One of the programs known as Energy Star had some significant success. The program, "Through its promotion of energy-efficient household products and homebuilding techniques, in 2005, saved the equivalent of 4 percent of the 2005 electricity demand" (p. 345) and prevented an equivalent of 22 million cars worth of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere. Also, over twelve billion dollars in energy costs were saved because of voluntary compliance with Energy Star's guidelines (Kubasek, 2008).

When former- President Bush took over for the Clinton Administration, the subject of energy policy was put way down on the list of priorities. It appeared that the Reagan days of energy policy had made a return. It was rather clear from the start that former President George W. Bush was always more for the oil, gas, and nuclear companies than alternative energy sources because he provided large tax incentives for them whereas alternative fuel sources received much less attention. Essentially, Bush was more interested in increasing supply rather than increasing energy efficiency. The Bush Administration did not introduce anywhere near the number of plans, Executive Orders, or Acts that some previous presidents had passed. While both the House and Senate passed different versions of an energy bill, a single bill had not been agreed on as of 2007. The House and Senate Concurrent Resolutions, or the 25 X 25' goal, was introduced in 2007 and called for 25% of the nation's energy supply to consist of renewable energy. As of 2007 it had not been implemented (Kubasek, 2008).

Over three decades has passed and the United States still does not have an energy bill that has been passed by both the House and Senate. With each administration that has come and gone, one administration's successes would be followed by another administration's lax on energy policy. Of the seven administrations in this paper, about four or five of them at least tried to take the initiative when it came to energy policy. Two presidents that are known for trying to alter and dismantle aspects of energy policy are former-Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Thanks to them, funding for important research programs into alternative forms of energy had been slashed. Ronald Reagan had even tried to dismantle the DOE. It appears that the Nixon and Carter were the two presidents that placed energy policy closest to the top of the priorities list. Nixon was responsible for the creation of the FEA, increased funding of programs that delve into research on alternative forms of energy, the implementation of a 55 mph speed limit, and the implementation of daylight savings time. Now that newly elected President Obama has taken office, all we can do is wait to see what happens with our nation's energy policy.

So where does our energy policy stand today? With a new administration in place, only time will tell. There is one well known person that is fighting intensely to give some sort of permanent structure to the U.S. Energy Policy. That person is T. Boone Pickens. There are many words that can be used to describe T. Boone Pickens. He has been a Texas oilman, a corporate raider, a shareholder rights crusader, and a philanthropist (Reed, 2008). Pickens has spent years trying to make the U.S. political and economic agenda go forward. According to Pickens, our country is spending over $700 billion a year on foreign oil and our importation of foreign oil has gone from 24% in 1970 to almost 70% today. With these facts in mind, Pickens has been trying to persuade the new administration to make his proposed energy plan a reality.

It is clear that a new and comprehensive energy plan is needed in the United States. Maybe, just maybe that will happen sometime not too long from now. It is obvious that our country is too dependent on foreign oil. As the years have gone by our importation of oil has increased drastically. As Pickens points out, a big part of allowing our economy to flourish in the decades to come is to concentrate on using more domestic sources of fuel instead on relying on countries that can turn their backs on us at any time.

In a nutshell, Pickens plan has several key objectives which are meant to benefit the economy and decrease our dependence on foreign oil. The key objectives are to:

1) generate up to 22% of our energy from wind which will create millions of new jobs

2) build a power grid that meets the demands of the 21^st century

3) provide a number of incentives to homeowners so that they can upgrade their installation and implement other energy saving options

4) Replace foreign oil with natural gas which is to be used to fuel our means of transportation

Pickens plan calls for building a number of wind farms all across the Great Plains from North Texas all the way to the Canadian border. This, Pickens says, will create 138,000 new jobs in the first year and over three million jobs over ten years. It also calls for increased solar energy use from western Texas across the Southwest to California. Also, he believes we must expand our use of natural gas to include use in cars instead of just in buildings. This will greatly reduce our importation of foreign oil (America is Addicted, 2008).

Pickens energy plan does have a lot of promise when it comes to reducing our dependence on foreign oil. To get it to become a reality, there has to be support from the Obama administration. If Pickens plan is to become a reality, we will be able to reduce our dependence on foreign oil enough to keep an extra $350 to $450 million dollars a year. This saved money can be used to fund development and research into other technologies such as solar and wind (America is Addicted, 2008).

Sources:

Kubasek, Nancy. (2008). Environmental Law. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education,
Inc

America is addicted to foreign oil. (2008). Retrieved June18, 2009, from http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/

Reed, D. (2008, July 11). Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens wants to supplant oil with wind.

Retrieved June18, 2009, from http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/

2008-07-08-t-boone-pickens-plan-wind-energy_N.htm