Us Energy Policy And The Pursuit Of Failure

U.S. Energy Policy and the Pursuit of Failure is an analytic history of American energy policy. For the past forty years, the U.S. government has tried to develop comprehensive policies on energy, yet these efforts have failed repeatedly. These failures have not resulted from a lack of will or funds but rather from an inability to differentiate between what could be undertaken and what could actually be accomplished. This book explains how and why various policy efforts have come about, shows why politicians have been eager to back them, and analyzes why they have inevitably failed. Over the past four decades, U.S. energy policy makers have pursued not just policies that have failed but also a policy process that leads to failure.

"U.S. Energy Policy and the Pursuit of Failure is an analytic history of American energy policy. For the past forty years, the U.S. government has tried to develop comprehensive policies on energy, yet these efforts have failed repeatedly. These failures have not resulted from a lack of will or funds but rather from an inability to differentiate between what could be undertaken and what could actually be accomplished. This book explains how and why various policy efforts have come about, shows why politicians have been eager to back them, and analyzes why they have inevitably failed. Over the past four decades, U.S. energy policy makers have pursued not just policies that have failed but also a policy process that leads to failure."--Publisher's website.

This book presents an analytic history of American energy policy, examining policy failures and how the policy process itself leads to failure.

When Barack Obama entered the White House, he faced numerous urgent issues. Despite the citizens' demand for strong presidential leadership, President Obama, following a long-standing precedent for the development and implementation of major policies, appointed administrators--so-called policy czars--charged with directing the response to the nation's most pressing crises. Combining public administration and political science approaches to the study of the American presidency and institutional politics, Justin S. Vaughn and José D. Villalobos argue that the creation of policy czars is a strategy for combating partisan polarization and navigating the federal government's complexity. They present a series of in-depth analyses of the appointment, role, and power of various czars: the energy czar in the mid-1970s, the drug czar in the late 1980s, the AIDS czar in the 1990s, George W. Bush's trio of national security czars after 9/11, and Obama's controversial czars for key domestic issues. Laying aside inflammatory political rhetoric, Vaughn and Villalobos offer a sober, empirical analysis of what precisely constitutes a czar, why Obama and his predecessors used czars, and what role they have played in the modern presidency.

Fully updated, this third edition explores the benefits and problems of modern energy technology and policy, suitable for a broad readership.

Canada and the United States explains, across fifteen diverse areas, why and how Canada and the United States are still so different. The book discusses whether or not these differences are growing, the key results of such differences, and the major challenges to be faced in each system. Focusing on institutions, political cultures, and social values, the book shows how both federal systems are extremely complex and how our institutions, cultures, and historical experiences often lead to very different outcomes. The fifth edition discusses the emergence of vital new issues, including the pandemic and its effects, climate change, energy requirements, increasing international tensions, and new trade problems. This book also reviews massive budgetary changes, new forms of protest emerging in Canada, and an ongoing political crisis in the US instigated bya former president convincing millions that the 2020 election was a hoax. Written by leading scholars in their field, Canada and the United States reveals how the two countries compare when dealing with similar problems that often spill across the border.

Our future depends on what we do about energy. This stark fact, clear since the oil embargo of the 1970s, has been hammered home through crisis after crisis—and yet our government has failed to come up with a coherent energy policy. John Deutch, with his extraordinary mix of technical, scholarly, corporate, and governmental expertise in the realm of energy, is uniquely qualified to explain what has stood in the way of progress on this most pressing issue. His book is at once an eye-opening history of the muddled practices that have passed for energy policy over the past thirty years, and a cogent account of what we can and should learn from so many breakdowns of strategy and execution. Three goals drive any comprehensive energy policy: develop an effective approach to climate change; transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy technologies; and increase the efficiency of energy use to reduce dependence on imported oil. Why has every effort in this direction eventually fallen short? Deutch identifies the sources of this failure in our popular but unrealistic goals, our competing domestic and international agendas, and our poor analysis in planning, policy-making, and administering government programs. Most significantly, The Crisis in Energy Policy clarifies the need to link domestic and global considerations, as well as the critical importance of integrating technical, economic, and political factors. Written for experts and citizens alike, this book will strengthen the hand of anyone concerned about the future of energy policy.