Setting America free

Divergent political camps in the United States have found common ground in support of “energy security” and “energy independence”. As high gasoline prices and intensifying conflicts in the Middle East focus attention on US dependence on petroleum imports, progressives and conservatives are organizing to reshape US policy based on their own views about what the terms “energy security” and “energy independence” mean.

Although it’s the 21st century’s high prices at the pump and terrorism-related security concerns that have propelled energy security and energy independence as policy goals, this terminology is nothing new: the energy crisis of the late 1970s prompted similar debate.

At the start of his presidency, George W Bush directed an energy task force, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, to develop a new national energy policy. In its May 2001 report, the National Energy Policy Development Group framed its policy recommendations as a matter of ensuring energy security and reducing energy dependence.

While Cheney’s task force recommended increased domestic energy production to decrease dependence on imported oil, its main thrust was to call for a foreign and military policy in Asia, Africa and the Middle East that would secure continued US access to foreign energy sources. In his 2002 book Resource Wars, Michael Klare reported: “One-third of the recommendations in the report are for ways to obtain access to petroleum sources abroad.”

Asia Times