Project-Syndicate.
CAMBRIDGE – When President Richard Nixon proclaimed in the early 1970’s
that he wanted to secure national energy independence, the United States
imported a quarter of its oil. By the decade’s end, after an Arab oil
embargo and the Iranian Revolution, domestic production was in decline,
Americans were importing half their petroleum needs at 15 times the
price, and it was widely believed that the country was running out of
natural gas.
Energy shocks
contributed to a lethal combination of stagnant economic growth and
inflation, and every US president since Nixon likewise has proclaimed
energy independence as a goal. But few people took those promises
seriously.
Today,
energy experts no longer scoff. By the end of this decade, according to
the US Energy Information Administration, nearly half of the crude oil
that America consumes will be produced at home, while 82% will come from
the US side of the Atlantic. Philip Verleger, a respected energy
analyst, argues that, by 2023, the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s “Project
Independence,” the US will be energy independent in the sense that it
will export more energy than it imports.
Verleger argues that energy
independence “could make this the New American Century by creating an
economic environment where the United States enjoys access to energy
supplies at much lower cost than other parts of the world.” Already,
Europeans and Asians pay 4-6 times more for their natural gas than
Americans do.
