The United States has been addicted to cheap gas, influencing both domestic and international policy. It has been one of the world’s largest producers of oil (after the former Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia) and natural gas, based on its holding of 3–4 percent of world supplies of each. This has created intense localized development, especially in Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and the West as well as Alaska, coupled with federal strategies to expand and protect these resources. Petroleum also means major US corporations such as Texaco, Sunoco, Exxon (Standard Oil), Hess and transnational conglomerates like Shell and BP. It has fueled a postwar American lifestyle of extremely high energy consumption.

Even when US production peaked at 9.64 million barrels per day in 1970, the consumption of gasoline via automobiles and other energy uses since the Second World War had made the US an oil-dependent nation (with imports outstripping domestic production by the century’s end). Given cheap fuel from abroad, domestic drilling also decreased dramatically Global economics and politics, therefore, have been shaped by negotia-tions of an external supply of oil as a strategic resource. While oil companies once maintained their control through a neo-colonial relationship, the emergence of OPEC in the 1960s posed an alternative control on global supplies.

Crisis loomed in 1970 as world supplies tightened and OPEC began to raise prices. In 1973 Arab states shut off exports to the US in protest of American support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Spiraling prices and generalized inflation, lines and rationing at gas pumps challenged American hegemony, although the government favored increasing production rather than attacking demands due to sprawl, consumption, etc. Iran’s embargo in 1979 again raised this specter, although development of Alaskan fields and increased production worldwide has allowed Americans to think and drive as if any crisis has evaporated. Both controversial offshore drilling and the multi-billion dollar commitment of the Trans-Alaska pipeline reflect public interest in oil development even at the expense of the environment, which is already contaminated by automotive wastes.

Critics also have accused the US of coddling dictatorial regimes (Nigeria) or even going to war in the Gulf to protect strategic supplies and allies.

Within this framework, petroleum companies have become highly visible signs of American life through the frequent gas stations of city streets and highways, as well as massive impact on cities like Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Denver. Research support and corporate sponsorship of programming like PBS’ Masterpiece Theater (Mobil) or sporting events have been used to assuage concerns about profits and environmental impacts. The names associated with the history of oil production— Rockefeller, Pew, etc.—also appear in monuments, foundations and other institutions of American life. Yet oil spills, smog and petrochemical wastes spur continuing opposition to the unchecked role of petroleum products and producers in American life.

Natural gas is sometimes touted as an alternative possibility especially for home and production uses, and has led to major investment in delivery pipelines around the country This resource, too, is concentrated in western states giving them special clout in energy planning and use, while deregulation has opened new competition among energy commodities and suppliers.