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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

U. S. energy policy: Crisis and complacency

Book ·
OSTI ID:6769062

The authors undertook this book with the record of inadequacy in energy policy analysis uppermost in their minds. Their purpose is to analyze the nation's recent energy history and specifically the actions taken to formulate a national energy policy in response to the energy crisis. Their starting assumption was that the United States policy process had failed to respond effectively to that crisis. In the course of doing the research for this book, they found that their initial perception of policy failure was incorrect. Although the process of evolving an energy policy was fragmented, chaotic, and incremental, by the end of 1980 the United States had a workable energy policy. They found that between 1973 and 1980 the United States policy system had been developing a new national consensus on energy. That consensus existed, at least in rudimentary form, when the Reagan administration came into office. This book thus represents a revision of the conventional wisdom held by most laymen and most energy specialists about what had occurred with regard to energy policy by 1980. The failure to understand both how the national policymaking process works and what it had accomplished before the advent of the Reagan administration has and will have costly consequences for our society.

OSTI ID:
6769062
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English