Lessons for North America

In: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:74de5ffb-7318-4ec8-93ee-0d411a8f6415

Abstract

Energy issues should have provided clear political lessons to governments over the past fifteen years, especially the United States, which twice led coalitions to battle in the Middle East over matters in which oil played a significant role. It was also a period when revenues from oil and the symbolic ties between the world's largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, and Washington, became central to the al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington. Even in the domestic arena energy should have been front and centre, providing lessons for the future. For in the USA there were periodic spikes in gasoline, heating oil, natural gas and electricity prices, major power disruptions on both coasts and frequent public debates over LNG imports, environmental regulations, and resource exploitation on government lands, among other issues.