The Energy Path Not Taken

Abstract

This article reviews the past 15 years that Planning & Forecasting
Consultants have spent trying to persuade the President of the United
States to adopt a viable national energy policy. When President Reagan
took office in 1981, the U.S. was 10 percent dependent on foreign energy.
Today the country is 28 percent dependent on foreign energy. Clearly,
the U.S. did not take the energy path we recommended.
In 1987, we formally asked the Reagan Administration to limit
energy imports to 15 percent.
The day President Clinton took office in 1993, we formally asked
his administration to limit energy imports to 20 percent. That proposal
is more fully documented in the Spring 1993 edition of this journal, and
is entitled: “Proposed: A National Policy to Distribute Petroleum Re-
sources More Fairly.”
Again in 1998, we asked the Clinton Administration to limit energy
imports to 25 percent.
Today, the United States’ energy dependency is about 28 percent,
with little relief in sight to slow the increasing energy dependency. And
oil itself is 58 percent dependent on foreign sources.
Many are calling for a comprehensive national energy policy. By
comprehensive, most mean that their pet project be included in the
funding. The United States does not need a comprehensive energy
policy. All the U.S. needs is for the president to declare that energy
imports are a threat to national security and implement a federal regu-
lation limiting energy imports to whatever percentage he deems reason-
able. The president currently has this statutory power under existing
trade laws.
Now is the time for the U.S. government to take another energy
path.