Carter’s Energy Plan

February 1, 1977 20th Century, U.S. Policy

President Jimmy Carter sends Congress a comprehensive National Energy Plan with 113 legislative proposals, including new taxes on automobiles, on utilities that burn oil or natural gas instead of coal, and a gasoline tax intended to create a floor on gasoline prices

President Carter鈥檚 National Energy Plan is called 鈥渁s ambitious and complex as any legislative proposal a president has ever sent to Congress.鈥 听Plan architect James Schlesinger describes the Carter Administration鈥檚 goals: 听to transition away from 鈥渃heap and abundant energy used wastefully without regard to national and international imperatives to an era of more expansive energy with concomitant regard for efficiency, conservation, international and environmental concerns.鈥 听The proposal includes dramatically expanding federal regulatory power over energy producers, suppliers, and consumers.听 President Carter describes his energy initiative as 鈥渢he moral equivalent of war.鈥 听The American people, however, continue to regard cheap gasoline, inexpensive electricity, and low heating prices as an entitlement.听 The legislation finally enacted included virtually none of President Carter鈥檚 proposed taxes to stimulate conservation and the production of alternative fuels.听 Schlesinger: 听鈥淭he basic constituency for this problem is in the future.鈥澨 President Carter: 听鈥淲e can manage the short-term shortages more effectively and we will, but there are no short-term solutions to our long-range problems.听 There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice.鈥*

 

*Michael J. Graetz, The End of Energy: The Unmaking of America’s Environment, Security, and Independence听 (Cambridge:听 MIT Press, 2011) at 106, 110, 141.