It is February, 1993 and the United States has just experienced a serious energy emergency. High oil prices and cutbacks in international supplies of oil and gas have forced the President to tap America’s Strategic Petroleum reserves. The inflation rate has jumped sharply to nine percent and the trade deficit is sky-rocketing. Various world events have helped to create this energy emergency. Among them are the bombing of the Gwar oil fields in Saudi Arabia (decreasing Saudi oil production by 35%) and a miscalculation on the part of both American and European refiners of the consequences of limiting supplies and reducing raw product inventories.

The President has joined other world leaders in calling for concerted international action, but no consensus has emerged on what that action should be. It is within this context that the President has convened a broadly-based bipartisan Commission on America’s Energy Future. The President has asked the 16-member commission to develop detailed proposals for reducing America’s vulnerability to the kinds of pressures and events that caused the recent emergency. The President has given the Commission six months to produce a report and urged them to strive for consensus so that the US might speak with a unified voice. The Commission will meet three times during those six months.