The review will serve as a roadmap to address the country’s most pressing energy challenges. The first installment, scheduled for January 2015, will focus on US energy infrastructure. This is part of the administration’s effort to formulate a comprehensive national energy policy or set of policies, which is something the nation has lacked, due in large to the challenge of maintaining a consistent energy strategy throughout churning two- and four-year election cycles.

“Our current infrastructure is increasingly challenged by transformations in energy supply, markets, and patterns of end use; issues of aging and capacity; impacts of climate change; and cyber and physical threats. Any vulnerability in this infrastructure may be exacerbated by the increasing interdependencies of energy systems with water, telecommunications, transportation, and emergency response systems,” the White House said in a memo released yesterday to announce the initiative.

“The ways that this country produces and uses energy are changing in ways that few people could have predicted a decade ago. As an Administration we’ve pursued an all-of-the-above energy strategy, and, as a result, we are now more energy secure than at any time in recent history, and we have cut our carbon pollution in the process. We have more than doubled our production of electricity from wind and solar since the President took office, and we have set a goal to double it again by 2020.

We are also producing more of our own conventional fuels. The United States is now the number one natural gas producer in the world, and, for the first time in decades, the United States is now producing more oil at home than it imports from abroad. These are important steps to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil and responsibly leverage our nation’s home-grown energy resources.” – White House blog

Read the full White House memo here:

Establishing a Quadrennial Energy Review