In 1973, the United States and other western countries were shocked by the Arab oil embargo. Lines formed at gasoline pumps; fuel stations ran out of supply; prices skyrocketed; and the nation realized its vulnerability to decisions made by leaders of countries half a world away. In response, the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which was signed into law by President Gerald Ford in 1975, has become the nation?s primary tool of energy policy. Following its first major use during the Persian Gulf War of 1991, officials and policy makers at the highest levels increasingly turned to the SPR to stave off shortages and mitigate rising energy prices. Author and historian Bruce A. Beaubouef examines, for the first time, the interactions that have shaped the development of the SPR. He argues that the SPR has survived because it is a passive regulatory tool that serves to protect energy consumers and petroleum consumption and does not compete with the American oil industry. Indeed, by the late twentieth century, as American import dependency reached new heights, refiners and transporters increasingly relied upon the SPR as a ready resource to help maintain feedstock when supplies were tight or disrupted. In a time of continued vulnerability, this definitive work will be of interest to those concerned with the history, economy, and politics of the oil and gas industry, as well as to historians and practitioners of oil and energy policy.

The second, completely updated edition of this widely read and respected guide is the most authoritative survey available on the perennial question of energy security. Energy and Security gathers today's topmost foreign policy and energy experts and leaders to assess how the United States can integrate its energy and national security interests. This edition offers fresh analysis and insight into • Fundamental shifts in the global energy balance • The revolution in shale gas and oil • New energy frontiers, from ultra deepwater to the Arctic • The rising agenda of safety concerns across the energy complex • Energy poverty • Infrastructure for modernizing power grids • Climate security in the current political and economic environment The contributors offer a lively discussion of the challenges and opportunities presented by these changes and how they affect national security and regional politics around the globe.

With Middle East blow-ups, pipeline politics, wind farm controversies, solar industry scandals, and disputes over fracking, it's natural to think that the energy policy debate is at its most intense ever. But it's easy to forget that energy issues dominated the nation's politics in the 1970s as well. Wars were fought, political careers made and unmade, and fortunes gambled and lost, all because of the vagaries of energy production and consumption, which held the American public and its politicians in thrall. This historical investigation focuses exclusively on American energy policy in the 1970s. Revisiting the last time energy issues came to the forefront of national political discourse, the essays collected here provide new insight into the energy crisis of that decade—insights with clear implications for our present dilemmas. Among a new generation of energy historians, the authors address questions of political leadership, foreign policy, supply, and demand. Chapters examine the politics of energy policymaking; efforts by American policymakers to increase supply and reduce demand; and the challenge of crafting American foreign policy as the Middle East emerges as the world’s leading oil-producing region. American Energy Policy in the 1970s reminds us of a wide range of policy successes and failures and offers an in-depth look at the complicated workings of such issues as café standards, alternative energy supplies, nuclear power, conservation, the strategic petroleum reserve, and the Carter Doctrine. This book restores historical clarity and context to the complex and politically freighted discussion of energy in America. It should inform and enlighten the discussion going forward.