The U. S. Department of Energy originated from the federal Energy Policy Office created in June 1973. The extreme shortages the United States faced in the areas of electricity, gasoline, and heating oil forced the government to address the lack of policy in this area. This ENERGY crisis marked 1973 as the year of factory and school shutdowns, commercial-airline flight cancellations, electrical brownouts, major city blackouts, and long lines at gas stations. President Richard M. Nixon responded by formulating a national energy policy, which led to the creation of the federal Energy Policy Office. President Nixon named William Simon as its head. Simon’s first actions were to order refineries to produce more heating oil rather than gasoline, to initiate year-round daylight savings time, to ask drivers not to exceed 50 miles per hour, and to require gas stations to limit individual sales as well as operating hours.
President James Earl Carter, Jr., inherited many of the same problems that President Nixon had fought. President Carter, with the help of his Energy Secretary James Schlesinger, formulated an energy policy within the first 90 days of Carter’s inauguration. The plan called for a myriad of programs, including the creation of the Department of Energy, which was activated on October 1, 1977. The new department assumed the responsibilities of the Federal Energy Administration, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Federal Power Commission, and parts of several other agencies. The department’s task is to provide a comprehensive and balanced national energy plan, including research and development of energy technology, marketing of power, energy conservation, the nuclear weapons program, and an energy data collection and analysis program.
Congress enacted the Energy Policy Act in 1992, which reaffirmed the mission of the Department of Energy but also mandated additional activities assigned to the department. This mandate included a charge to foster energy production from biomass materials, such as corn and sugar beets. The department was also charged with monitoring the effects of domestic and international policy on global climate change. In 2005 Congress amended the Energy Policy Act, placing a greater emphasis on the Department of Energy’s role in energy security, especially its role in promoting alternative and renewable energy sources as a means of reducing U. S. dependency on foreign oil. At the beginning of the 21st century, the department’s mission includes securing energy through conservation and alternative technologies, managing nuclear weapons stockpiles, monitoring energy policy as it relates to global climate change, and promoting energy research.
See also CONSERVATION, environmentalism, and environmental POLICY.
Further reading: U. S. Department of Energy. Available online. URL: Http://www. energy. gov/. Accessed December 30, 2008.
—Leah Blakey and Amy Wallhermfechtal
World History
