Carter's oil crisis warning went unheard
Twenty-nine years ago today, President Jimmy Carter told Americans that the energy crisis was "a clear and present danger to our nation" and drew out a plan to address it. Sustainability reporter Sam Eaton asks what happened.
President Jimmy Carter delivers his "Crisis of Confidence" speech on July 15, 1979. (The Miller Center of Public Affairs)
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- VIDEO & TEXT: President Carter's 'Crisis of Confidence' speech.
From the The Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia
TEXT OF STORY
Kai Ryssdal: At his press conference today the president once again called for Congress to lift its ban on offshore oil drilling. He said even though it would take years to pay off, drilling would still put the U.S. on the right track toward reducing dependence on foreign oil. And he said there are no short-term solutions.
President George Bush: The president doesn't have a magic wand. You can't just say low gas. It took us a while to get here and we need to have a good strategy to get out of it.
Ryssdal: Twenty-nine years ago today Jimmy Carter made a speech and told us he thought had a pretty good strategy. It didn't go anywhere. But we asked our sustainability reporter Sam Eaton what things would be like today if it had.
Sam Eaton: The energy crisis of President Carter's tenure may have been rooted in a different set of causes. But the solutions he proposed his 1979 "crisis of confidence" speech could just as easily have been directed at today's set of challenges.
Tape of President Jimmy Carter: The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them.
Dan Kammen: History has born Carter to be dead on.
Dan Kammen is an energy policy expert at U.C. Berkeley. He says the image of President Carter wearing a cardigan sweater to stay warm may not have been very presidential, but his ideas were. In that same speech Carter proposed a cap on foreign oil imports and an ambitious conservation plan that included a 48-mile-per-gallon fuel efficiency standard for cars.
Kammen: If that amount of savings was going on, United States would have no need to import a drop of oil from the Middle East.
Jerry Taylor: Foreign oil is what keeps prices down.
Jerry Taylor with the conservative CATO institute says Carter's moratorium on foreign oil imports would have devastated the U.S. economy if Congress had approved it. He says the solution to today's energy crunch is to let the market work. Just look at how U.S. automakers are already ramping up production of fuel-efficient compacts.
Taylor: All that's happening without a George Bush speech in a cardigan sweater from the White House. It's happening because prices are high and people react.
But unlike the energy crises of the late 1970, few are predicting that this one will go away. And if that's the case, Berkeley's Dan Kammen says the U.S, may need that cardigan sweater after all.
In Los Angeles, I'm Sam Eaton for Marketplace.
Comments
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From Woodbridge, VA, 07/20/2008
In the 1970's students were discussing the reallocation of world resources. All the energy you can imagine is in the super volcano in Wyoming if we could tap it. The media destroyed Carters image, he was one of the few engineering presidents who knew technology implemented would help get us free of oil. But, noone on the republican side admits that oil, gasoline produce dangerous gases that are affecting our children with asthma and atmosphere. Air pollution in China is causing birth defects amongs the children and adults. Pictures have been shown of small children wearing breathing masks to protect them from all the air pollution in the worst cities. If you live in L.A. you breath in the equivalent of one pack of cigarettes a day. We had electric cars 80 years ago until we were suckered into switching to gasoline driven vehicles.
From Colorado Springs, CO, 07/18/2008
Something for you folks to ponder about. What is the definition of supply and demand? If there is an energy crisis, as in shortage of oil, or as in more demand for oil than there is supply, then would would have long lines of vehicles at the gas station. Does anyone see long lines of people at the gas station? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! This menas there is NO shortage of oil or gas of any kind. This high prices of oil is not due to market demand and supply, and gain, based on classic definition of supply and demand. Some one or some groups (besides the obvious oil producers) are making a killing of this artificial hike in oil prices.....
07/18/2008
Improving our CAFE standards on an incremental basis should have been a priority for years. Perhaps our EPA should start implementing (and enforcing) year over year improvements to our mpg. Now that it's too late our economy, the economic engine for the world historically, is being replaced by some other country. Only the strong survive in a capitalist economy. Gore summed things up nicely just yesterday: WE ARE BORROWING FROM CHINA TO BUY OIL FROM THE MIDDLE EAST TO DESTROY OUR ENVIRONMENT. ...Further reducing our overall quality of life and raising our health care costs. (A penny spent in the 70's would have been a significant contribution to avoiding our current "slow growth" scenario).
07/18/2008
Most americans think the USA is a free-market, and they hate the idea of social policy. But the driving force behind america's prosperity was Oil. And Oil was not, for a while, free-market. We had the guns, we kept the arab/venezuelan/mexican dictators in power, and got paid back in oil. But the world has changed. We are finally being given our own medicine, free-market. Unlike the ease of bailing out their buddies in freddie/fannie/bear, congress can not tax and spend out of the end of cheap oil. Carter's warning, given to a thinking society, could have made this blow less painful. But now market forces will have to do their job. Being fornicated without a warning is probably not pleasant, but free-market loving americans will have to endure it as the market corrects the level of prosperity down to a level that their abilities and resources dictate. Americans are also religious, so they are welcome to pray. In the mean time, over the next 10 years, a brutal free-market process will take place, and it will be painful, -but well deserved.
From america, NE, 07/17/2008
Hipppies never do the numbers. Carter didn't either when he outlawed reprocessing of Nuke fuel. Way to go, now we are behind in tech as well as dependendent on 3rd worlders.
From MO, 07/17/2008
To the person who said that electric motors run decades without being worked on. I can show you two pool pump motors, a HVAC motor and numerous others that have had to be rebuilt or replaced after 5-6 years because they wear out. Typical liberal rubbish where you lie and deceive to make people think you know what you are talking about. So Carter got one right, he got many times more wrong, but the Democrats of present don't care because they are bought and paid for by the liberal greenies.
From Spring, TX, 07/17/2008
I think Mr. Muse has accurately described how the market will respond.
From San Francisco, CA, 07/17/2008
Oh, the market will respond, alright... with the closure of America's automotive giants.
From Fullerton, CA, 07/16/2008
Earth to Sam Eaton--the libertarians at Cato shudder when they're referred to as "conservative." We conservatives don't smoke as much pot as the Cato bunch, and I think it shows. Dude.
From Carson City, NV, 07/16/2008
I would like to listen to and have a copy of Presidents Carter's energy speech (as mentioned on 7-15 and on your website) but the link did not work. Can you send me a link that works or direct me where I might get this information? Thanks.
From CO, 07/16/2008
Carter was completely right, the Kato institute just won't admit it. The market will right itself, but what about the economic damage in the process? How many more SUVs do we have now than Carter had to deal with when he made his speech?
From Mesa, AZ, 07/16/2008
The United States could have been free of our dependence on foreign oil
decades ago.
Two industries have a vested financial interest in making sure it never
happens: the oil industry for obvious reasons and the automobile
industry for not as obvious reasons.
Electric motors run for multiple decades with virtually no maintenance.
When is the last time the readers had to replace the motor in their
electric refrigerator? Probably never.
Electric vehicles have no filters to replace, spark plugs, radiators or
exhaust system. Electric vehicles would last for decades. Our current
automotive industry is dependent upon buyers replacing their cars every
few years.
Electric cars and air-powered cars (search www.youtube.com for "air
car") would make the oil industry and petroleum-powered cars obsolete.
Will the oil industry and automotive industry do everything in their
power to make sure that electric and air-powered cars are not sold in
the United States? Yes.
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