page_title: Energy policy of the United States
section_title: Petroleum
hierarchical_section_title: Energy policy of the United States / Sources / Petroleum
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. Imports of Crude Oil and Petroleum Products (Thousand Barrels) 1981 -2010 Français&#160;: Importation de produits pétroliers par les États-Unis de 1981 à 2010 en milliers de barils.
context_page_description: The energy policy of the United States is determined by federal, state, and local entities in the United States, which address issues of energy production, distribution, and consumption, such as building codes and gas mileage standards. Energy policy may include legislation, international treaties, subsidies and incentives to investment, guidelines for energy conservation, taxation and other public policy techniques.
  Several mandates have been proposed over the years, such as gasoline will never exceed $1.00/gallon, and the United States will never again import as much oil as it did in 1977, but no comprehensive long-term energy policy has been proposed, although there has been concern over this failure. Three Energy Policy Acts have been passed, in 1992, 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2009 which include many provisions for conservation, such as the Energy Star program, and energy development, with grants and tax incentives for both renewable energy and non-renewable energy.
context_section_description: In 2006, the U.S. consumed 20.8 million bbl (3.31 million m³) of petroleum a day, of which 9 million bbl (1.4 million m³) is motor gasoline. Transportation is the largest consumer, accounting for approximately 68.9%, and 55% of oil use worldwide as documented in the Hirsch report. With approximately 5% of the world's population, the United States is responsible for approximately 25% of annual global oil consumption and according to 2008 estimates has a per-person daily consumption rate more than double that of the European Union. Automobiles are the single largest consumer of oil, consuming 40%, and are also the source of 20% of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions.
  The USA has about 22 billion bbl (3.5 billion m³) reserves while consuming about 7.6 billion bbl (1.21 billion m³) per year. This has created pressure for additional drilling. European gasoline prices reached $4 per U.S. gallon ($1.1 per liter) through taxation long before they reached the same price in the U.S., leading to higher consumption in the U.S.
  Problems associated with oil supply include volatile oil prices, increasing world and domestic petroleum product demand, dependence on unstable imported foreign oil, falling domestic production (peak oil), and declining infrastructure, like the Alaska pipeline and oil refineries.
  American dependence on imports grew from 10% in 1970 to 65% by the end of 2004. The Energy Information Administration projects that U.S. oil imports will remain flat and consumption will grow, so net imports will decline to 54% of U.S. oil consumption by 2030.
  
  The subject of continued exploration for offshore drilling in the United States is a perennial debate, one which was heavily influenced in 2010 by the BP Macondo oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
caption: U.S. Imports of crude oil and petroleum products (in thousands of barrels), 1981–2010.
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