Unnatural Resources: Energy and Environmental Politics in Appalachia after the 1973 Oil Embargo by Michael Camp

Abstract

Reviewed by: Unnatural Resources: Energy and Environmental Politics in Appalachia after the 1973 Oil Embargo by Michael Camp Merritt McKinney Unnatural Resources: Energy and Environmental Politics in Appalachia after the 1973 Oil Embargo. By Michael Camp. History of the Urban Environment. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019. Pp. viii, 192. $40.00, ISBN 978-0-8229-4571-0.) What a difference a few years and an energy crisis make. The late 1960s and early 1970s saw a surge in public support for regulations to protect the [End Page 940] environment. But the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 led to a lessening of the federal government's environmental protection efforts. In Unnatural Resources: Energy and Environmental Politics in Appalachia after the 1973 Oil Embargo, Michael Camp identifies the 1973 oil embargo as an important turning point in the nation's changing attitudes about the proper balance between environmental quality and economic growth. Though he does not contend that the 1973 crisis was the sole reason for the change in environmental priorities, he does convincingly argue that concerns about inadequate energy supply—especially oil—had an important influence on the shift away from environmental protection. As he notes, "When energy supplies tighten, public concern for the environment can diminish" (p. 3). Though published as a volume in an influential environmental history series, this book is at heart a political history dealing with environmental issues. After an initial chapter providing an overview of national energy politics from the early 1970s to the Reagan presidency, each of the remaining chapters focuses on a narrower topic: the attempt to shift utility plants from oil to coal power to preserve the nation's oil supply; the controversy over the Clinch River breeder reactor in Tennessee; the impact of the Tellico Dam project on enforcement of the Environmental Protection Act; and the difficulties experienced by the Tennessee Valley Authority as it tried to adjust to the new energy politics. The analysis of each of these examples is mostly in the context of the emerging energy politics at the federal level, but the book points out that local interests often led to blurred ideological lines. For example, continued funding of the Clinch River plutonium reactor faced opposition from both environmentalists concerned about its environmental and health effects and fiscal conservatives worried about its cost. Though the project was eventually halted, funding for the reactor continued for more than a decade in part because many local leaders, backed by a powerful U.S. senator, touted its economic benefits to the surrounding area. The subtitle of the book, Energy and Environmental Politics in Appalachia after the 1973 Oil Embargo, is a bit misleading. Each of the case studies deals with events that took place in the Appalachian region—mostly East Tennessee—but the book is less a study of Appalachia than an examination of national energy politics with examples that happen to be from that region. There is little sense that the book's argument depends on distinct characteristics of Appalachia. Examples from other parts of the country would likely reveal a similar conflict of priorities and ideologies. Unnatural Resources is a useful book for scholars interested in the history of energy politics in the 1970s and 1980s as well as for those interested more broadly in how national debates on environmental regulation interacted with local interests. According to its author, "energy is a historical concept rooted in specific times and specific places" (p. 148). Through the study of several such times and places, this book aims to help explain the challenges President Jimmy Carter faced in achieving his energy goals. [End Page 941] Merritt McKinney Volunteer State Community College Copyright © 2020 Southern Historical Association