- 1300 Asp Ave., Boren Hall, Norman, OK 73072
Robert Lifset
University of Oklahoma, Honors College, Faculty Member
This talk was delivered at Boscobel House in the Hudson River valley in December 2014. It was published in the Dot.Earth blog of the New York Times in April 2015.
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The beauty of the Hudson River Valley was a legendary subject for artists during the nineteenth century. They portrayed its bucolic settings and humans in harmony with nature as the physical manifestation of God’s work on earth. More than... more
The beauty of the Hudson River Valley was a legendary subject for artists during the nineteenth century. They portrayed its bucolic settings and humans in harmony with nature as the physical manifestation of God’s work on earth. More than a hundred years later, those sentiments would be tested as never before. In the fall of 1962, Consolidated Edison of New York, the nation’s largest utility company, announced plans for the construction of a pumped-storage hydroelectric power plant at Storm King Mountain on the Hudson River, forty miles north of New York City. Over the next eighteen years, their struggle against environmentalists would culminate in the abandonment of the project.
Robert D. Lifset offers an original case history of this monumental event in environmental history, when a small group of concerned local residents initiated a landmark case of ecology versus energy production. He follows the progress of this struggle, as Con Ed won approvals and permits early on, but later lost ground to environmentalists who were able to raise questions about the potential damage to the habitat of Hudson River striped bass.
Lifset uses the struggle over Storm King to examine how environmentalism changed during the 1960s and 1970s. He also views the financial challenges and increasingly frequent blackouts faced by Con Ed, along with the pressure to produce ever-larger quantities of energy.
As Lifset demonstrates, the environmental cause was greatly empowered by the fact that through this struggle, for the first time, environmentalists were able to gain access to the federal courts. The environmental cause was also greatly advanced by adopting scientific evidence of ecological change, combined with mounting public awareness of the environmental consequences of energy production and consumption. These became major factors supporting the case against Con Ed, spawning a range of new local, regional, and national environmental organizations and bequeathing to the Hudson River Valley a vigilant and intense environmental awareness. A new balance of power emerged, and energy companies would now be held to higher standards that protected the environment.
Robert D. Lifset offers an original case history of this monumental event in environmental history, when a small group of concerned local residents initiated a landmark case of ecology versus energy production. He follows the progress of this struggle, as Con Ed won approvals and permits early on, but later lost ground to environmentalists who were able to raise questions about the potential damage to the habitat of Hudson River striped bass.
Lifset uses the struggle over Storm King to examine how environmentalism changed during the 1960s and 1970s. He also views the financial challenges and increasingly frequent blackouts faced by Con Ed, along with the pressure to produce ever-larger quantities of energy.
As Lifset demonstrates, the environmental cause was greatly empowered by the fact that through this struggle, for the first time, environmentalists were able to gain access to the federal courts. The environmental cause was also greatly advanced by adopting scientific evidence of ecological change, combined with mounting public awareness of the environmental consequences of energy production and consumption. These became major factors supporting the case against Con Ed, spawning a range of new local, regional, and national environmental organizations and bequeathing to the Hudson River Valley a vigilant and intense environmental awareness. A new balance of power emerged, and energy companies would now be held to higher standards that protected the environment.
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With Middle East blow-ups, pipeline politics, wind farm controversies, solar industry scandals, and disputes over fracking, it's natural to think that the energy policy debate is at its most intense ever. But it's easy to forget that... more
With Middle East blow-ups, pipeline politics, wind farm controversies, solar industry scandals, and disputes over fracking, it's natural to think that the energy policy debate is at its most intense ever. But it's easy to forget that energy issues dominated the nation's politics in the 1970s as well. Wars were fought, political careers made and unmade, and fortunes gambled and lost, all because of the vagaries of energy production and consumption, which held the American public and its politicians in thrall.
This historical investigation focuses exclusively on American energy policy in the 1970s. Revisiting the last time energy issues came to the forefront of national political discourse, the essays collected here provide new insight into the energy crisis of that decade—insights with clear implications for our present dilemmas. Among a new generation of energy historians, the authors address questions of political leadership, foreign policy, supply, and demand. Chapters examine the politics of energy policymaking; efforts by American policymakers to increase supply and reduce demand; and the challenge of crafting American foreign policy as the Middle East emerges as the world’s leading oil-producing region. American Energy Policy in the 1970s reminds us of a wide range of policy successes and failures and offers an in-depth look at the complicated workings of such issues as café standards, alternative energy supplies, nuclear power, conservation, the strategic petroleum reserve, and the Carter Doctrine.
This book restores historical clarity and context to the complex and politically freighted discussion of energy in America. It should inform and enlighten the discussion going forward.
This historical investigation focuses exclusively on American energy policy in the 1970s. Revisiting the last time energy issues came to the forefront of national political discourse, the essays collected here provide new insight into the energy crisis of that decade—insights with clear implications for our present dilemmas. Among a new generation of energy historians, the authors address questions of political leadership, foreign policy, supply, and demand. Chapters examine the politics of energy policymaking; efforts by American policymakers to increase supply and reduce demand; and the challenge of crafting American foreign policy as the Middle East emerges as the world’s leading oil-producing region. American Energy Policy in the 1970s reminds us of a wide range of policy successes and failures and offers an in-depth look at the complicated workings of such issues as café standards, alternative energy supplies, nuclear power, conservation, the strategic petroleum reserve, and the Carter Doctrine.
This book restores historical clarity and context to the complex and politically freighted discussion of energy in America. It should inform and enlighten the discussion going forward.
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The last couple of years have seen a number of new histories focusing on the politics of environmentalism. Much of this scholarship has recognized the central role of Congress in environmental policymaking; see, for example, Paul Milazzo,... more
The last couple of years have seen a number of new histories focusing on the politics of environmentalism. Much of this scholarship has recognized the central role of Congress in environmental policymaking; see, for example, Paul Milazzo, Unlikely Environmentalists: Congress and Clean Water, 1945-1972 (2006); Bill Christofferson, The Man From Clear Lake: Earth Day Founder Senator Gaylord Nelson (2004); and Byron Pearson, Still the River Runs Wild: Congress, the Sierra Club and the Fight to Save Grand Canyon (2002). A second trend might very well be the recovery of a past in which environmentalism is not a oneparty issue. While it might be difficult for us to imagine, there was a time when environmental policies enjoyed broad bi-partisan support. So it should not surprise us that as historians more closely examine the history of mid-twentieth-century environmentalism, they should find that which appears all too rare today: Republicans. Two recent biographies of Republican environmentalists depicting two very different people demonstrate that, for a time, it was possible to construct a political identity that was both environmental and Republican. While Thomas G. Smith's, Green Republican: John Saylor and the Preservation of America's Wilderness, does not present a well-defined argument, it is an important contribution to both political and environmental history because this biography examines perhaps the most important, and least well-known, mid-twentieth-century environmental legislator. As the ranking minority member on the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee from 1959 to 1973, Saylor bitterly fought the Bureau of Reclamation over a series of controversial western dams; he was an ardent supporter of stricter air and water standards, but his greatest impact was in the field of
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Energy History as transnational stories of households, ideas, infrastructures, coal mines, earth quakes and nuclear power. Co-authored with: Ian Jared Miller, Paul Warde (eds.), John R. McNeill, Victor Seow, Conevery Bolton Valencius,... more
Energy History as transnational stories of households, ideas, infrastructures, coal mines, earth quakes and nuclear power. Co-authored with: Ian Jared Miller, Paul Warde (eds.), John R. McNeill, Victor Seow, Conevery Bolton Valencius, Robert D. Lifset