Notwithstanding occasional laments to the contrary, the US has had a consistent energy strategy since at least World War II. The strategy has little to do with any of the several book-length and therefore unread products of political bureaucracy that have emerged over the years with "strategy" in their titles. It is instead a guiding sense that energy should be supplied reliably and affordably and that reliable, affordable supply of energy relates to national security.
Too often, political arguments over energy strategy, when they occur, become debates among the high-minded over hopeful principles at odds with practicality, goaded by schemers seeking ways to make money without having to compete. Compared with products of those exercises, the simple if nebulous fusion of reliable, affordable supply with national security is more compelling. When something disrupts supply and raises the price of energy, politicians stop talking and start acting. And when they act on energy, they base decisions on national security.
Mixed record
The supply-security nexus doesn't ensure sound policy-making, of course. It begat price and market controls in the 1970s, after all. And concern about energy security, a concept never precisely defined, sometimes steers policy toward protectionism. Stabilized by healthy appreciation for markets and safety-personal and environmental-though, the strategy can yield constructive change, such as deregulation of oil and gas markets.
The record may be mixed, but the strategy reflects durable values that Americans embrace as priority interests of their nation. Policy for decades thus has been oriented to the provision of affordable energy from secure sources in service to interests related not only to economics but also to national defense.
By these standards, the US deserves a victory lap. Technology has created an oil and gas bonanza in North America. Supplies of oil, gas, and gas liquids have increased so much, so fast, that prices have plummeted. US imports of oil are falling, and the country soon will be a net gas exporter. Production of bitumen from Canadian oil sands is growing. The efficient linking of Canadian supply with natural markets in the US promises economic and security benefits to both countries. And production increases possible from reform in Mexico elevates North America oil and gas potential-in terms of both quantity and security of location-to levels unimaginable as recently as the start of the 21st century. Americans should be celebrating.
Instead, they're learning the strategy has changed. As a national concern, energy suddenly yields to climate change. Energy cost is less important than greenhouse-gas emissions. Reliability of supply is no concern as long as wind blows and the sun shines. Concerning security-well, American worry has been misplaced all these years.
In a commencement speech at the Coast Guard Academy last month, President Barack Obama called climate change "an immediate risk" to security. "Denying it or refusing to deal with it endangers our national security," he said. "It undermines the readiness of our forces."
So the administration proposes to limit emissions of greenhouse gases wherever it can. An example cited here last week is the US Environmental Protection Agency's plan to regulate emissions of methane and ozone precursors from oil and gas activities. The program might increase emissions overall by limiting the replacement of coal by gas in electric power generation (OGJ, June 22, 2015, p. 16). But under new assertions about security, offsets somehow don't matter.
Yet replacing affordable energy with costlier substitutes imposes cost. Foreswearing profitable development of natural resources constrains wealth. Blocking a strategically valuable pipeline, because it might raise greenhouse-gas emissions, compromises security.
New strategy
The US is veering toward an energy strategy fundamentally different from the one to which it gravitated for decades. The new strategy subordinates energy affordability and reliability to a myopic war against carbon. This course change has received no vote by Congress and no public discussion of any vigor. The president is simply imposing it.
That, to many Americans, is a real security issue.