US energy policy has for decades been a set-up for a joke about oxymorons, such as “military intelligence” or “honest broker”.
From Richard Nixon’s 1973 pledge that by 1980 “we shall be able to meet America’s energy needs from America’s own energy resources” to Barack Obama’s September 2010 promise to “address all facets of our over-reliance on fossil fuels”, successive presidents have paid obeisance to the idea that the US energy system needs fundamental reform.
