ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on energy policy and the energy mix in the US. Energy policy is central to any effective strategy to tackle climate change, specifically a move away from a reliance on fossil fuels such as oil and gas. The chapter analyses the use of hydraulic fracking and its implications for American climate change policy. It also focuses on the nuclear power. In addition to its demonstrable link to climate change, the use of oil has broader environmental consequences. As Rosenbaum has noted, the extraction of oil reserves on federal lands has been a 'source of conflict between proponents of accelerated petroleum production and environmentalism'. The US is in the middle of an unprecedented gas and oil drilling rush with the use of fracking to extract both shale gas and oil. Fracking is allowing access to oil reserves that were too expensive or too technologically challenging using traditional drilling techniques.
