U.S. Energy Policy

Energy has become America's forgotten crisis. For more than a decade, Americans have become stridently complacent towards the use and especially the availability of energy to fuel most aspects of their economic and recreational lives.

Memories of the oil shocks of the '70s have grown very dim. Long lines at gas stations have been replaced with long lines of people at auto dealers buying gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles. The United States now imports more oil, over 50%, than it did prior to the first "oil crisis" of 1973-74. Yet our reliance on fossil fuels has not been tempered by history.

Fossil fuels -- petroleum, natural gas, and coal -- are finite, and eventually they will run out. They are not renewable, and they carry significant political and environmental complications. But there are alternatives. Sidney Borowitz presents a concise, coherent narrative of the major sources of energy currently in use today throughout the world, and explains, in a cogent, jargon-free manner, how these other energy sources -- nuclear, solar photovoltaics, wind, geothermal, fusion, hydrogen, and ocean currents -- can be developed.

To continue on our present complacent course is to court environmental and political disaster. This prescient book presents a clear-eyed, even-handed explication of solutions that will help us avoid future energy crises.

This is a study of how policy ideas, first raised as definitions of specific problems and as solutions for those problems, get translated into formal public policy. Specifically, the work tracks the making of energy and telecommunications policy in Congress.

Explores the connection between the design of energy policy and the evaluation of policy, and the billion-dollar impact on public and private expenditures.

Includes the proceedings of the May 2002 e-Vision 2002 Conference, a gathering of the nation's leading energy experts to discuss ways to reduce U.S. economic energy intensity.

With contributions by experts in economics, geography, marketing, agriculture, business, international affairs, and more, this book addresses the extent and gravity of the current environmental situation. From toxic industrial and medical waste to acid rain and radioactive waste, from the Alaskan oil spill to the continuing destruction of the rain forests, McKee's focus is on economic welfare. He points out that public and private issues regarding environmental problems have been limited to crisis response. The contributions he has chosen for this volume clarify key issues for formulating policy options toward long-range economic welfare.