The Dominant Model of United States Energy Policy

Conventional wisdom has it that the United States has no coherent and comprehensive national energy policy.! This notion persists despite the fact that Congress requires the President to submit to it, biannually, a national energy plan.2 Like all catechisms, this belief is partially true and partially false, depending upon one\u27s perspective. The better statement about U.S. energy policy is that it is kaleidoscopic. If one concentrates on one portion of a kaleidoscope, shapes, colors and images appear chaotic. So, too, does energy policy if one examines only one segment of the policymaking process, as does an analyst who concentrates on Congressional action, for example. 3 However, as one pulls back and looks at the full kaleidoscopic screen, patterns emerge. The theme of this article is that, at a certain level of generality, the United States has developed over the .last one hundred years an identifiable pattern of energy decisionmaking and energy policy. This pattern forms what can be properly termed the Dominant Model of United States Energy Policy