Jimmy Carter was ahead of his time on energy (and craft brewing)

Former President Jimmy Carter died on Sunday, Dec. 29, 2024, at his home in Plains, Georgia. He was 100.

History hasn't been especially kind to Carter, a one-term president who lost decisively to Ronald Reagan in 1980. His presidency was marked by gas shortages, stagflation and a high-profile hostage crisis — not what you'd call happy memories of the late 1970s.

But it's not all bad news for Carter's legacy. (For more on that, check out what our writers had to say about how he changed American politics.)

Carter's environmental legacy in particular is sizable. Yes, he is well-known for wearing a sweater and turning down the thermostat in the White House (and asking Americans to do the same). He also doubled the size of the national park system when he signed a bill protecting lands in Alaska in 1980. But his faith and support of solar technology helped push it to the viable industry that exists today.

Carter famously put solar panels on the White House in June 1979. They heated water instead of generating electricity, as today's panels do, but they were a symbol of his commitment to solar technologies. (They lasted a surprisingly long time, too — Reagan took them down during a roof repair in 1986.)

And Carter's actions weren't just symbolic. He designated May 3, 1978, as "Sun Day" and committed the government to improve solar technology and encourage its uptake. He set a national goal of meeting 20 percent of the country's energy needs from solar and renewable sources by the end of the century. (In 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, the U.S. got about 8 percent of its energy from hydro, wind, solar and biomass, according to the International Energy Association.) He also proposed the creation of a solar bank to subsidize installation of panels for businesses and homes and tax credits for solar equipment. "No foreign cartel can set the price of sun power; no one can embargo it," he wrote in the message to Congress.

Carter also redirected federal funding into energy research. His allocation topped $10 billion in 1979 and remains the largest investment by any modern presidency in energy research and development. Carter's energy allocations made up as much as 30 percent of the $45 billion (in 2022 dollars) nondefense research and development budget in 1979.

Carter signed the bill creating the Department of Energy on Aug. 4, 1977, which consolidated more than 30 different government offices and roles to oversee energy regulations, research and policy. The Solar Energy Research Institute (now called the National Renewable Energy Laboratory) opened in 1977 in Golden, Colorado, and hosted Carter on "Sun Day."

"When you're dealing with climate change, symbolic victories may be nice, but what you ultimately need are improvements in technology," said Jay Hakes, who worked in the Carter administration, served as the director of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library from 2000 to 2013 and led the U.S. Energy and Information Administration during the Clinton administration. "[Carter's investments] didn't get us to commercial viability, but it was early rungs on the ladder."

Hakes says that Carter's financial commitments to solar technology research are one of his greatest accomplishments.

Carter also warned frequently about American dependence on foreign oil. "The crises in Iran and Afghanistan have dramatized a very important lesson: Our excessive dependence on foreign oil is a clear and present danger to our Nation's security," he said in his final State of the Union address in 1980. Oil imports fell drastically during his term:

Carter's vision of ending foreign oil dependence ultimately wasn't realized. In his "Crisis of Confidence" speech on July 15, 1979, he set a goal of reducing oil imports by 50 percent by 1990. (As you can see in the chart above, that's not what happened.)

But Carter was also responding to the gas shortages that helped doom his bid for a second term. Oil prices spiked in 1973 when OPEC announced an embargo on the U.S. and its allies for supporting Israel during the Yom Kippur War. President Richard Nixon had added price controls to gasoline as part of an effort to control costs in 1971 and instituted a 55 mile per hour speed limit to increase fuel efficiency. In 1979, another oil shortage occurred when production fell during the Iranian Revolution and OPEC raised prices.

Rising costs for gas reduced demand for gasoline. Carter called on Americans to conserve. Fuel efficiency of cars improved as well, spurred by the first fuel efficiency standards passed by President Gerald Ford and Congress in 1975, and implemented under Carter. "The combination of the Ford and Carter policies really helped cut the demand for oil; when you reduce the demand, that generally reduces the demand for imports," said Hakes, who has written several books about U.S. energy policy. "I call the reduction in imports from '77-'83 a 'hidden victory.'"

Not all of Carter's forgotten wins have to do with energy. Carter signed many deregulation bills, which targeted airlines, interstate trucking and freight rail, with the goal of stimulating the economy. In 1978, he signed a bill removing Prohibition-era limits on home brewing, planting the seeds for the craft beer boom.

But as much as Americans now love craft beer, it's Carter's energy policies that were most forward-looking — although his successors in the White House didn't have a similar outlook. Reagan cut funding for renewable energy research and development by 85 percent when he took office. The U.S. wouldn't increase fuel efficiency standards for vehicles again until 2011.

Carter, however, continued to embrace solar technology in his post-presidential life. In 2017, he leased 10 acres of land near his home in Plains, Georgia, for a solar farm. It generates half the power the town needs.

"I think if we had continued the investments in energy research and development, that would have changed the world as we know it today," Hakes said. "I think in 50 years, looking back and having a generation recognize the threat of climate change, that investment in solar photovoltaics, which probably doesn't rise up in people's minds right now, is going to be close to [Carter's] No. 1 [legacy] because it has so many ramifications."