Three-quarters of them would carry only one personthe driverwhile our public transportation system continues to decline. Now the energy proposal that I made to Congress last April has three basic elements to ensure that it is well balanced. But I think most of you realize that a policy which does not ask for changes or sacrifices would not be an effective policy at this late date. I feel like ordinary people are excluded from political power. Carter didn't directly recommend rationing, but it's clear he . It costs about $13 to waste it. Let your voice be heard. That's why I've worked hard to put my campaign promises into law--and I have to admit, with just mixed success. But we can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources--America's people, America's values, and America's confidence. This means that just to stay even we need the production of a new Texas every year, an Alaskan North Slope every 9 months, or a new Saudi Arabia every 3 years. This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and your lives at a cost you can afford. We remember when the phrase "sound as a dollar" was an expression of absolute dependability, until 10 years of inflation began to shrink our dollar and our savings. Within 10 years, we would not be able to import enough oil from any country, at any acceptable price. The former . It unbalances our Nation's trade with other countries. Intense competition for oil will build up among nations and also among the different regions within our own country. Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem that is unprecedented in our history. Those citizens who insist on driving large, unnecessarily powerful cars must expect to pay more for that luxury. It will lead to some higher costs and to some greater inconvenience for everyone. For Jimmy Carter, protecting environment has been an "exhilarating I can't be too concerned about other things when I have a 10-year-old daughter to raise and I don't have a job and I'm 56 years old." I know that many of you have suspected that some supplies of oil and gas are being withheld from the market. Demand will overtake production. We can drift along for a few more years. November 08, 1977. Our fathers and mothers were strong men and women who shaped a new society during the Great Depression, who fought world wars, and who carved out a new charter of peace for the world. We believed that our Nation's resources were limitless until 1973, when we had to face a growing dependence on foreign oil. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! This summer we used more oil and gasoline than ever before in our history. That is the concept of the energy policy that we will present on Wednesday. that it be. This is one reason that I'm working with the Congress to create a new Department of Energy to replace more than 50 different agencies that now have some control over energy. Jimmy Carter speaks about a national "crisis in confidence" Our emphasis on conservation is a clear difference between this plan and others which merely encouraged crash production efforts. Jimmy Carter, "Malaise" Speech, July 15, 1979 - Bill of Rights Unless profound changes are made to lower oil consumption, we now believe that early in the 1980's the world will be demanding more oil than it can produce. We will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environment. Point six: I'm proposing a bold conservation program to involve every State, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle. This will not be the last time that I, as President, present difficult and controversial choices to you and ask for your help. They are going up, whether we pass an energy program or not, as fuel becomes more scarce and more expensive to produce. Supplies will be uncertain. A look at Jimmy Carter's legacy in Georgia and around the world These quotas will ensure a reduction in imports even below the ambitious levels we set at the recent Tokyo summit. read more. Other generations of Americans have faced and mastered great challenges. The energy. place in this century, with the growing use of oil and natural gas. . The fifth principle is that we must be fair. And third, it protects our Federal budget from any unreasonable burden. We've always been proud of our ingenuity, our skill at answering questions. And I do not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in the world, with unmatched economic power and military might. They were more convenient and cheaper than coal, and the supply seemed to be almost without limit. National Energy Plan: Address to the Nation. We are at a turning point in our history. To further conserve energy, I'm proposing tonight an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. In fact, it is the most painless and immediate way of rebuilding our Nation's strength. Carter became a one-term president after Reagan defeated him in a blowout victory in 1980, but Carter's political defeat intensified his lifelong quest to know whether he had done his best and . We need to shift to plentiful coal, while taking care to protect the environment, and to apply stricter safety standards to nuclear energy. Address to the Nation on Energy | The American Presidency Project Jimmy Carter 39th President of the United States: 1977 1981 Address to the Nation on Energy April 18, 1977 Good evening. The eighth principle is that Government policies must be predictable and certain. The Arab oil embargo of 1973 sent energy prices soaring, and four years later, the impacts were still rippling through the economy. Carter's "Malaise Speech" of 1979 (remembering the crisis of Six years ago, we paid $3.7 billion for imported oil. A few weeks ago, in Detroit, an unemployed steelworker told me something that may reflect the feelings of many of you. We can't substantially increase our domestic production, so we would need to import twice as much oil as we do now. Exactly 3 years ago, on July 15, 1976, I accepted the nomination of my party to run for President of the United States. If they succeed with this approach, then the burden on the ordinary citizen, who is not organized into an interest group, would be crushing. This excessive importing of foreign oil is a tremendous and rapidly increasing drain on our national economy. All of us have heard about the large oil fields on Alaska's North Slope. to establish a strategic petroleum reserve of one billion barrels, more than a 6-months supply; The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980's, for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade--a saving of over 4 1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day. The oil and natural gas that we rely on for 75 percent of our energy are simply running out. Ours is the most wasteful nation on Earth. The tenth and last principle is that we must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy that we will rely on in the next century. We've always believed in something called progress. It is worldwide. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The history of our Nation is one of meeting challenges and overcoming them. This incentive for new oil production would be the highest in the whole world. There is something especially American in the kinds of changes that we have to make. Another very important question before Congress is how to let the market price for domestic oil go up to reflect the cost of replacing it while, at the same time, protecting the American consumers and our own economy. As president, Jimmy Carter advised Americans to set their thermostats to 55 degrees overnight during the winter months to "waste less energy," offering his guidance in a televised address to the nation on February 2, 1977, in the midst of a national natural gas shortage. With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge that our country will face during our lifetime. Although the energy crisis and recession were the main topics of conversation, Carter heard from the attendees that Americans were also suffering from a deeper moral and spiritual crisis. We waste more energy than we import. He recounted a meeting he had hosted at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, with leaders in the fields of business, labor, education, politics and religion. But if we wait, we will constantly live in fear of embargoes. Carter quoted one of the Camp David meeting participants as saying that Americas neck is stretched over the fence and OPEC has a knife. In addition, inflation had reached an all-time high during Carters term. Carter, who after the presidency would teach Sunday School, tried to rally the public to have faith in the future of America. We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. We were taught that our armies were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of Vietnam. We can decide to act while there is still time. Whether this plan truly makes a difference will not be decided now here in Washington but in every town and every factory, in every home and on every highway and every farm. Our Campaigns - Candidate - Jimmy Carter Our plan will call for strict conservation measures if we fall behind. And now we have a chance again to give the world a positive example. We need to shift to plentiful coal, while taking care to protect the environment, and to apply stricter safety standards to nuclear energy. The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly. But as I was preparing to speak, I began to ask myself the same question that I now know has been troubling many of you. We can delay insulating our homes, and they will continue to lose about 50 percent of their heat in waste. to increase our coal production by about two-thirds to more than one billion tons a year; On January 14, 1981, President Jimmy Carter delivered a farewell address to the nation, thanking his staff and the American people for the opportunity to serve, warning about the continuing threat . Well, I understand how he felt, but I must tell you the truth. The fifth principle is that we must be fair. On July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter addresses the nation via live television to discuss the nation's energy crisis and accompanying recession. Thank you very much, and good night. Previous. President Jimmy Carter's Address to the Nation on Energy Our cars would continue to be too large and inefficient. President Jimmy Carter - Address to the Nation on Energy - YouTube 0:00 / 4:35 President Jimmy Carter - Address to the Nation on Energy MCamericanpresident 10.4K subscribers Subscribe 830. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends. Jimmy Carter, Address to the Nation on Energy, Transcript, Miller Center at University of Virginia, April 18, . We can regain our confidence. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem. Our national security depends on more than just our Armed Forces; it also rests on the strength of our economy, on our national will, and on the ability of the United States to carry out our foreign policy as a free and independent nation. Center on Global Energy Policy in Boydton, VA Expand search. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the world. Selected Speeches of Jimmy Carter Jimmy Carter's Energy Speech of April 1977 (Is - Master Resource In spite of increased effort, domestic production has been dropping steadily at about 6 percent a year. The Secretary of Defense said recently, "The present deficiency of assured energy sources is the single surest threat to our security and to that of our allies." Danny De Gracia: What Hawaii Legislators Can Learn From Jimmy Carter You may be right, but suspicions about the oil companies cannot change the fact that we are running out of petroleum. It hurts every American family. This difficult effort will be the "moral equivalent of war," except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not to destroy. New oil prices would also rise in 3 years to the present world level and then be increased annually to keep up with inflation. But sometime in the 1980's, it can't go up any more. Play Video. Conservation helps us solve both problems at once. A huge box-office hit, the film established Willis as a movie star and spawned three sequels. He outlined the creation of a solar bank that he said would eventually supply 20 percent of the nations energy. April 18, 1977: Address to the Nation on Energy | Miller Center Jimmy Carter, "Address to the Nation on Energy," April 18, 1977 (excerpts). We've always been proud of our leadership in the world. We've always been proud of our vision of the future. An effective conservation program will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. There are three things that we must do to avoid this danger: first, cut back on consumption; second, shift away from oil and gas to other sources of energy; and third, encourage production of energy here in the United States. On July 15, 1918, near the Marne River in the Champagne region of France, the Germans begin what would be their final offensive push of World War I. In closing, let me say this: I will do my best, but I will not do it alone. We've always been proud, through our history, of being efficient people. We can spend until we empty our treasuries, and we may summon all the wonders of science. Little by little we can and we must rebuild our confidence. We can begin to prepare right now. AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Jimmy Carter, the only Georgian to serve as president, was born in Plains on Oct. 1, 1924, to Earl Carter, a farmer and businessman, and Lillian Carter, a. The first principle is that we can have an effective and comprehensive energy policy only if the Government takes responsibility for it and if the people understand the seriousness of the challenge and are willing to make sacrifices.