Coal and Natural Gas

Although there has been considerable speculation by scholars, the media, and policy-makers about the eventual content of U.S. energy policy, its social effects, and the public response to its impacts, almost no attempts have been made to inform such speculation by examination of past instances of energy-related alterations. The United States today faces problems involving energy supplies and usage which will directly affect future social patterns, industrial development, and environmental quality. Moreover, public policy decisions will be shaped by such elements as economic, political, and environmental factors, availability and comprehensiveness of scientific and technological information, and value-orientations of the administration, Members of Congress, their constituents, and representatives of the scientific/technical community. Once implemented, energy policy will have a range of impacts caused by higher prices, the shift to more expensive and alternative energy sources, and decisions made involving energy/environment and equity/efficiency tradeoffs. Here again the value-orientations of the participants will have critical effect, for example on the way the public deals with these impacts and their consequent effects upon life styles. Public values themselves may alter, as members of society confront new conditions of energy stringency. Among key issues today, for instance, in the framing of National Energy Policy are: (1) What form and shape should our energy policy take and to what extent should it represent the value orientation of one group in the policy-making process-such as conservationists-as opposed to another group-such as congressmen from oilrich constituencies? (2) To what extent do the values of energy policy-makers reflect actual national values? (3) What are the social, economic, and health costs and benefits that will stem from a particular energy policy and how should they be distributed? (4) What are the value orientations of affected groups and how will they respond to the policy? (5) To what extent will energy policy alter individual, community and group values? (6) What are the tradeoffs between the fulfillment of energy needs and preservation of environmental quality? While the media and policy-makers proceed as if questions and issues such as these are unique to the contemporary situation, all of them have arisen, at least in a generic manner, in several past instances involving energy change. Through an examination of the factors that entered into energy policy formation in the past, and the social and value impacts of this policy, we can gain insight into a crucial policy area facing the nation

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• Joel Tarr

  Mark Cioc, Char Miller•Environmental History•2011

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