<h3>Excerpt from the CATO Institute - Timeline and description of the development of the U.S. Department of Energy 1866 thru 2009.<br /><br /></h3>
<li><strong>1977:</strong> The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act regulates surface coal mines and imposes new fees on the coal industry.</li>
<li><strong>1977:</strong> As a consequence of price controls, many parts of the country experience severe natural gas shortages, and thousands of industrial plants and schools are closed.</li>
<li><strong>1977:</strong> At the urging of President Jimmy Carter, Congress creates the Department of Energy, which combines the Federal Energy Administration, the Energy Research and Development Administration, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.<sup><a id="_ednref5" name="_ednref5" href="#_edn5">5</a></sup>At birth, the department has about 20,000 employees. Today, it has 16,000 permanent employees and about 100,000 contract employees, who work in the national laboratories and other facilities.</li>
<li><strong>1978:</strong> President Carter signs the National Energy Act, which is a massive piece of legislation nine inches thick containing a slew of subsidies and tax incentives for conservation and alternative energy.</li>
<li><strong>1978:</strong> The NEA includes the Natural Gas Policy Act, which responds to natural gas shortages with an extremely complex and gradual phase-out of wellhead price controls by 1985, although additional legislation in 1989 is needed to complete the job.</li>
<li><strong>1979:</strong> Political turmoil in Iran, as well as OPEC actions, cause crude oil prices to soar. President Carter proposes bureaucratic solutions such as mandating allowable room temperatures in buildings and creating rationing coupons for gasoline. Shortages create automobile line-ups at gas stations in some regions, and "strike forces" of Department of Energy auditors swoop down on refiners and gas stations across the country looking for price-ceiling violators.</li>
<li><strong>1979:</strong> President Carter invites the media to the roof of the White House to see his new solar panel display, and promises to increase subsidies for alternative fuel technologies. President Ronald Reagan removes the panels in 1986.</li>
<li><strong>1979:</strong> President Carter proposes a gradual lifting of domestic oil price controls, but in a swap for a windfall profits tax on oil. Carter's tax idea is not new: both the Nixon and Ford administrations had pushed for a windfall profits tax.<sup><a id="_ednref6" name="_ednref6" href="#_edn6">6</a></sup></li>
<li><strong>1980:</strong> Congress passes the Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act, which imposes an excise tax on earnings from domestic crude oil sales above a base or "normal" rate of profit. The tax is expected to generate massive revenues of $227 billion during the 1980s.<sup><a id="_ednref7" name="_ednref7" href="#_edn7">7</a></sup> But it is repealed in 1988 as a complete failure—it raises a lot less revenue than expected, it stifles domestic oil production, and it increases oil imports.</li>
<li><strong>1980:</strong> President Carter signs the Energy Security Act, which includes a range of new subsidies and tax breaks for conservation and alternative energy.</li>
<li><strong>1980:</strong> As part of the ESA, Congress creates the Synthetic Fuels Corporation to develop alternatives to imported oil. The project is a giant boondoggle, and it is closed down in 1986 after wasting $4 billion of taxpayer money.<sup><a id="_ednref8" name="_ednref8" href="#_edn8">8</a></sup></li>
<li><strong>1980:</strong> Ronald Reagan is elected president promising to abolish the Department of Energy, arguing that it "hasn't produced a quart of oil or a lump of coal, or anything else in the line of energy."<sup><a id="_ednref9" name="_ednref9" href="#_edn9">9</a></sup></li>
<h3><a href="http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/energy/timeline">Read more ...</a></h3>