Abstract
The outlook for the U.S. energy supply is very different from what it was just four years ago, the last time oil prices were going up — and the last time Americans were electing a president. Back then, it seemed the only questions were how fast oil imports would continue to rise and whether the United States was destined to import increasing amounts of natural gas. But the years since have seen an astonishing revival in U.S. oil and gas production, and with it a change in the national conversation about energy. In the presidential campaign ahead, the debate over America’s energy policy is likely to be very different from years past.
The FP Survey on energy, which sounded the views of 57 experts, demonstrates just how much the debate is already changing. “Energy independence,” a chimera invoked by every U.S. president since 1973, has now become a serious subject for discussion. But nearly two-thirds of FP’s respondents do not think that the United States will be energy independent or that independence is a sensible goal in the first place. As one wrote, “Unless the United States wishes to adopt the economic policies of the former Soviet Union, the U.S. economy will always be linked to global markets for oil.”
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