The 1979 Energy Crisis\' Impact

the 1979 Energy Crisis' Impact on U.S. Foreign and Domestic Policies

The 1979 Energy Crisis was a major international turning point in energy policy and had far reaching political and economic ramifications. The crisis created a raised awareness of the interconnected nature of the world energy markets, specifically the oil markets and gave citizens in the U.S. specifically, a new perspective on oil consumption. During the crisis, products like oil and gasoline were rationed and prices went sky high, creating a financial as well as logistics nightmare for many people. There were some positive ramifications that came from the crisis however, namely some modification to socially acceptable gas mileage requirements and the overarching realization that the U.S. was extremely dependent on foreign oil, and therefore had a major infrastructure and civilization related vulnerability.

The major cause of the 1979 energy crisis was the Iranian Revolution which after the Shah of Iran left the country, and protests and oil production slowed, gave rise to a newly created Iranian government and foreign policy measures. This disrupted and later decreased oil production created a landscape of gas rationing and general panic over the lowered supply of petroleum products. Really for the first time, the U.S. began to realize that its dependency on foreign oil for its transportation and security needs was a potential security issue. Then President Jimmy Carter referred to the crisis in one of his most famous speeches as, "The moral equivalent of war." Eventually, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations were able to increase their oil production to make up for the decrease in Iranian output, effectively ending the crisis.

In the U.S., Plans were made to begin to move away from foreign oil as a main provider of fuels, but the Reagan Administration effectively slowed the progress of this switch from foreign to domestic energy products and the 1979 Energy Crisis became a small speed bump in the history of U.S. And Foreign relations relative to energy. The crisis did however have a slightly larger and more lasting impact on the U.S. auto industry, which began producing some models that had gas mileage capabilities that were better than previously thought practical or possible. U.S. consumers, in the wake of the 1979 Energy Crisis, began to demand more and more of these vehicles, and the sub-compact automobile became a staple within the U.S. auto industry and the U.S. auto consumer's world.