International energy : international forums contribute to energy cooperation within constraints : report to the Chairman, Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed to a 15-year term by the U.S. President. The GAO wants to support Congress, while at the same time doing right by the citizens of the United States. They audit, investigate, perform analyses, issue legal decisions and report anything that the government is doing. This is one of their reports.

In an effort to provide greater awareness of the necessary policy decisions facing our elected and appointed officials, Energy Policy in the U.S.: Politics, Challenges, and Prospects for Change presents an overview of important energy policies and the policy process in the United States, including their history, goals, methods of action, and consequences. In the first half of the book, the authors frame the energy policy issue by reviewing U.S. energy policy history, identifying the policy-making players, and illuminating the costs, benefits, and economic and political realities of currently competing policy alternatives. The book examines the stakeholders and their attempts to influence energy policy and addresses the role of supply and demand on the national commitment to energy conservation and the development of alternative energy sources. The latter half of the book delves into specific energy policy strategies, including economic and regulatory options, and factors that influence energy policies, such as the importance of international cooperation. Renewed interest in various renewable and nontraditional energy resources—for example, hydrogen, nuclear fusion, biomass, and tide motion—is examined, and policy agendas are explored in view of scientific, economic, regulatory, production, and environmental constraints. This book provides excellent insight into the complex task of creating a comprehensive energy policy and its importance in the continued availability of energy to power our way of life and economy while protecting our environment and national security.

Is the quest for true energy security a fool’s errand? In recent years, the efforts of nations to promote energy security have been hotly debated. Fuels Paradise examines how five major developed democracies—Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States—have sought to enhance their energy security since the oil shocks of the 1970s and in response to the more diverse set of challenges of the early twenty-first century. Drawing on a vast range of primary and secondary sources, John S. Duffield explains the actions taken—and not taken—by these countries to address their energy security concerns. Throughout the book, Duffield argues that state strength and policy legacies are essential for understanding national responses to energy insecurity. In addition to identifying feasible energy policies and the constraints faced by policy makers, he evaluates the prospects for international cooperation to promote energy security and considers the implications of recent advances in the production and distribution of energy, particularly the fracking revolution. An ambitious cross-national and longitudinal study grounded in promising theories of national behavior, Fuels Paradise will contribute substantially to broader debates about the determinants of state action and public policy.

ÔThis Handbook should be consulted by anybody interested in the issue of energy security. It convincingly demonstrates why the provision of energy is such a contentious issue, addressing the complex interaction of economic, social, environmental, technical and political aspects involved. The book is particularly valuable in investigating and highlighting processes in which (inter)national actors apply this variety of aspects in (re)constructing their notion of Òenergy securityÓ, its particular meaning and the implications thereof. Such understanding of energy security is helpful!Õ Ð Aad F. CorreljŽ, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands ÔEnergy security has for long been treated as an issue of pure geopolitics. Hugh Dyer and Maria Julia Trombetta aim at broadening energy security debates and extend them to new agendas. Their excellent Handbook offers a fresh perspective on four crucial dimensions: supply, demand, environment and human security. A diverse group of international energy scholars provides for an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of key contemporary energy problems, ranging from an oil producersÕ perspectives on energy security to ethical dimensions of renewable energy and climate governance.Õ Ð Andreas Goldthau, Central European University, Hungary This Handbook brings together energy security experts to explore the implications of framing the energy debate in security terms, both in respect of the governance of energy systems and the practices associated with energy security. The contributors expertly review and analyse the key aspects and research issues in the emerging field of energy security, test the current state of knowledge, and provide suggestions for reflection and further analysis. This involves providing an account of the multiplicity of discourses and meanings of energy security, and contextualizing them. They also suggest a rewriting of energy security discourses and their representation in purely economic terms. This volume examines energy security and its conceptual and practical challenges from the perspectives of security of supply, security of demand, environmental change and human security. It will prove essential for students in the fields of global, international and national politics of energy, economics, and society as well as engineering. It will also appeal to policy practitioners and anybody interested in keeping the lights on, avoiding climate change, and providing a secure future for humanity.

GAO-07-170 International Energy: International Forums Contribute to Energy Cooperation within Constraints