The energy crisis of the winter of 1973-1974 was the beginning of the United States' energy problems. To the citizens of the Commonwealth, the gasoline shortage was thought to be resolved when the lines at the gasoline filling stations disappeared. The gasoline crisis of last winter may have temporarily subsided, but the energy problem, for which there is no quick solution, is still with us.

The crisis was caused by domestic shortages of acceptable energy resources and by a mismatch in supply and demand relationships of specific energy resources such as oil and natural gas.

The search for new and expanded sources of energy and the development and production of these sources has not kept pace with the growing consumption of energy. Although the United States has less than six percent of the world's population, it uses almost thirty-three percent of the world's energy. Nearly seventy-eight percent of the energy used by the United States comes from oil and gas. Energy consumption has doubled in the United States since World War II, and is expected to double again by 1985 ["Report to the President on OCS Oil and Gas - An Environmental Assessment": Council on Environmental Quality (1974)]. Americans can no longer take for granted the perpetual availability of energy at relatively low cost. Fossil fuels such as natural gas and oil, which generate most of today's energy, have dwindled in supply domestically and have become costly to import. The consumption of and demand for energy continue to exceed the supply in readily useable forms and in forms compatible with environmental standards.

In the midst of this energy crisis, these contributing factors and a steadily deteriorating energy situation led the 1973 General Assembly to create the Commission to Study the Energy Crises in the Commonwealth.