On March 21, 2010, President Obama proposed opening offshore waters along the Atlantic Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas exploration. The area has preliminary estimates of 3.8 billion barrels of oil and 137 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Was this announcement political heresy and a sellout of environmentalism or a hard-nosed realism consistent with a pragmatic view of our energy needs and of our energy politics? Oil exploration and drilling, in the face of cries for energy independence and environmental protection, is seen by some as a betrayal of a smart energy future. To others, though, it is unrealistic to assume that we will be driving electric vehicles powered by renewable fuels to any significant degree within the next generation, and it is equally unrealistic to assume that renewable fuels will supplant coal for electricity generation in the near term. Indeed, projections about the growth of electric vehicles reveal no significant market penetration for nearly a generation. Moreover, projections for electricity generation from renewable resources remain marginal, ranging from 9 percent in 2008 to 17 percent in 2035. Consequently, as attractive as a non-fossil-fuel future may be, a transition period appears to be most likely in which oil, natural gas, and coal play prominent roles. Yet problems persist.