THE MACONDO oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico last April has consequences far beyond BP’s balance sheet—or even the potential rate of growth of offshore oil and gas production in U.S. territorial waters. It almost certainly marked the end of any possible legislation to bolster energy and environmental policy, perhaps for the rest of Barack Obama’s first term, and probably well into a second (should there be one). Above all, it may have stymied America’s first chance in forty years to approach energy independence.
We are a far cry from the president’s inaugural address, which promised to “harness the sun and the winds and the soil.” America was to be weaned from its internal-combustion-engine addiction, and power generation was to be revolutionized via renewables—radically reducing carbon emissions and oil imports.
Obama stressed the need to drastically change transportation technologies as well as power generation and distribution, forming the case for a new technological revolution that would enable the United States to reduce dependence on petroleum and harness the entrepreneurial forces of American society. He earmarked $105 billion out of the fiscal-stimulus program for renewable-energy incentives and projects designed to accelerate the digitizing of the national power grid. These were followed by initiatives to underwrite hybrid and electric cars and the controversial $2.8 billion cash-for-clunkers program. The administration proposed that some of the measures be paid for by $30 billion in new taxes on the oil and gas industry. Yet notably absent from this long list of programs were policies dealing with coal, shale gas, nuclear energy and offshore drilling.
