A Preliminary View of Obama’s Future Energy Policy

Barack Obama has been elected on a platform which includes the most ambitious new energy and environmental policy changes ever contemplated by the US. The numerous energy and climate-change goals elaborated by Obama and his advisors would imply the wholesale transformation of the US energy economy and a staged, but significant and challenging, reduction in US dependence on fossil fuels, particularly oil but potentially also coal. The current financial and economic crisis makes the challenge even more difficult, adding to traditional resistances to change in the energy realm.

Given Obama’s enormous political capital, however, and the growing sense of crisis –even emergency– that has gripped the country, the current difficult circumstances might provide the new Administration with even more political room for manoeuvre than has typically been the case to use government guidance and funding to stimulate significant changes in the energy reality of the US. The most likely policy outcome will be one of the most ambitious changes in energy policy ever witnessed in the US, with the very real possibility that the US will reassert its international leadership on energy and climate change issues. The challenge for Obama will be to integrate his energy and climate change ambitions with the numerous other pressing priorities facing the US, both domestically and internationally.