This is good news for airlines that buy jet fuel, truckers that buy diesel oil, and motorists filling up at the pump. But if you think we need not be concerned about our energy use, think again. National energy use rose 12 percent from 1990 to 1998. And with rising energy use came higher oil imports, greater risk of power shortages, and rising pollutant emissions. Net oil imports were up a whopping 48 percent over the past decade.
Power shortages are now commonplace during heat waves like the one that recently hit the East coast.
And carbon dioxide emissions, the main pollutant causing global warming, increased 10 percent since 1990. Rising energy use is caused in part by modest energy efficiency improvements. About 25 percent of households use one or more fluorescent light fixtures, but about 75 percent use only inefficient incandescent lamps. If we do not accelerate our rate of energy efficiency improvement, we will experience higher energy bills, more power outages, more pollutant emissions, and greater dependence on oil imports. Three proposals by the Clinton Administration would significantly increase our nation's energy efficiency in the coming decades.