It will be 35 years next week since former US president Richard Nixon, responding to an Arab oil embargo, vowed to make the US energy-independent — and do it in seven years.
Americans are still waiting.
Now as senators Barack Obama and John McCain vie to become the next president, a promise of US energy independence has again become a rallying cry on the campaign trail.
Is it possible, or even desirable? Many energy experts say it’s not. People disagree on what energy independence means — zero energy imports, or something less? And even if the US were energy independent, would it be insulated from global oil price shocks, with oil priced in a global marketplace? Again, energy experts say don’t count on it.
“As president I will turn all the apparatus of government in the direction of energy independence,” McCain declared, labeling his energy agenda “the Lexington Project,” after the New England town where the US declared its political independence.
He conceded it “has confounded” past Congresses and seven presidents.
Obama also embraced the idea. He promised as president to “make sure that we finally get serious about energy independence.”
Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been equally enamored of the catch-phrase. It was the justification Republican lawmakers cited repeatedly for more oil drilling off US coasts and in an Alaska wildlife refuge.
Democrats called the energy legislation they pushed through Congress last year the “Energy Independence and Security Act,” although its key provisions — a 40 percent increase in auto fuel efficiency and greater use of ethanol in cars — fell far short of achieving such a goal.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even created a new House committee to highlight the issue: the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
But to many experts the promise of energy independence, echoed over decades, is “pie in the sky” political rhetoric. If it means self sufficiency, critics have called it “a misguided quest,” a “red herring,” a “mirage” and a “myth” that might even cause more harm than good by shifting attention away from reducing US vulnerabilities while still relying on imports.
Thirty-five years ago, on Nov. 7, 1973, the US had lines of motorists waiting at gas stations and people worried about running out of fuel oil in the coming winter.
“We are running out of energy,” Nixon warned, addressing the nation four weeks after Arab oil producers had cut off supplies in response to US support of Israel in a war in the Middle East.
As he unveiled “Project Independence,” Nixon declared: “Let us set as our national goal ... that by the end of this decade we will have developed the potential to meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy sources.”
In 1973, the US imported 36 percent of its oil, up from 28 percent a year earlier, about half coming from the OPEC cartel. During the first eight months of this year, imports accounted for 13.4 million of the nearly 20 million barrels a day of US consumption, again about half the imports coming from OPEC.
Far from becoming reality, the promise of energy independence by Nixon and every president since is more remote than ever.
“I think it’s a false hope. The politicians love to say: ‘I’m going to move this country to energy independence.’ It’s not possible. It’s a goal that’s not feasible,” said Robert Ebel, a senior adviser in the energy and security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
If you’re talking about zero dependence on foreign oil “we can’t do it” because even with the new emphasis on alternative fuels, “we’re going to be using the same kind of primary energy in 2020 that we’re using today, though maybe in slightly different percentages,” Ebel said.
“There are very few if any [countries] that are energy independent. They have to import something,” he said.
Were it not for oil, the US might well be energy independent. It has more coal than it needs, plenty of natural gas, 104 nuclear reactors and the potential for plenty of wind energy and biomass fuels such as ethanol. With only 5 percent of the world’s population, the US consumes nearly a quarter of its energy.
Jay Hakes, former head of the government’s Energy Information Administration and author of a recent book, A Declaration of Energy Independence, said skeptics miss the point.
“I don’t think it requires going to zero percent imports,” to end the country’s “damaging dependence on foreign oil,” Hakes said in an interview.
He argued that the US cut its oil imports in half from 1977 to 1982, from 8.6 million to 4.3 million barrels a day.
While it “goes against conventional wisdom,” dramatic cuts can be made again, he said.
Gal Luft, co-founder of the pro-energy independence Set America Free Coalition, said it was all about national security “not having to kowtow to regimes that are hostile” because of oil.
“It’s got nothing to do with self sufficiency,” Luft said in an interview, calling that a “simplistic view of energy independence.”
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