United States energy policy from 1973 to the present has been a sequence of initiatives based on a strategy of “oil avoidance.” This began with the 1973 oil crisis, when the oil to avoid was from the Middle Eastern suppliers, until today, when the prevailing electrification policies of coal and nuclear power development—the energy options the United States has favored—still predominate. Environmental and capital limits are identified here as the two major constraints within which future policies will likely be framed. Today's policies, however, tend to ignore the continuing need for liquid fuels and the real question of growing demand for motor gasoline. If environmental and capital limits are to provide the criteria for the development of twenty first century energy policy, then energy efficiency in automobiles and buildings, coal use, and oil product pricing are an immediate set of topics with which to begin. However, if the electrification trend is to prevail despite costs and environmental limits, then a path of “most-cost energy strategy” may well have been chosen, with global implications.