by
Crane, Keith, 1953-
Call Number
382.422820973 22
Publication Date
2009
Summary
Assesses economic, political, and military concerns arising from the United States' dependence on foreign oil. In 2007, on a net basis, the United States imported 58 percent of the oil it consumed. This book critically evaluates commonly suggested links between these oil imports and U.S. national security. The major risk to the United States posed by reliance on oil is the economic costs of a major disruption in global oil supplies. On the other hand, the study found no evidence that oil exporters have been able to use embargoes or threats of embargoes to achieve key political and foreign policy goals. Oil revenues are irrelevant for terrorist groups' ability to launch attacks. The study also assesses the economic, political, and military costs and benefits of potential policies to alleviate challenges to U.S. national security linked to imported oil. Of these measures, the adoption of the following energy policies by the U.S. government would most effectively reduce the costs to U.S. national security of importing oil: (1) Support well-functioning oil markets and refrain from imposing price controls or rationing during times of severe disruptions in supply. (2) Initiate a high-level review of prohibitions on exploring and developing new oil fields in restricted areas in order to provide policymakers and stakeholders with up-to-date and unbiased information on both economic benefits and environmental risks from relaxing those restrictions. (3) Ensure that licensing and permitting procedures and environmental standards for developing and producing oil and oil substitutes are clear, efficient, balanced in addressing both costs and benefits, and transparent. (4) Impose an excise tax on oil to increase fuel economy and soften growth in demand for oil. (5) Provide more U.S. government funding for research on improving the efficiency with which the U.S. economy uses oil and competing forms of energy.--Publisher description.
Format:
Electronic Resources
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by
Jackson, Brian A., 1972-
Call Number
363.3480684 22
Publication Date
2010
Summary
The ability to measure emergency preparedness - to predict the likely performance of emergency response systems in future events - is critical for policy analysis in homeland security. Yet it remains difficult to know how prepared a response system is to deal with large-scale incidents, whether it be a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or industrial or transportation accident. This research draws on the fields of systems analysis and engineering to apply the concept of system reliability to the evaluation of emergency response systems. The authors describe a method for modeling an emergency response system; identifying how individual parts of the system might fail; and assessing the likelihood of each failure and the severity of its effects on the overall response effort. The authors walk the reader through two applications of this method: a simplified example in which responders must deliver medical treatment to a certain number of people in a specified time window, and a more complex scenario involving the release of chlorine gas. The authors also describe an exploratory analysis in which they parsed a set of after-action reports describing real-world incidents, to demonstrate how this method can be used to quantitatively analyze data on past response performance. The authors conclude with a discussion of how this method of measuring emergency response system reliability could inform policy discussion of emergency preparedness, how system reliability might be improved, and the costs of doing so. --From publisher description.
Format:
Electronic Resources
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0.0981
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