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On June 30, 1980, President Carter signed the Energy Security Act. consisting of six major acts: U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corporation Act, Biomass Energy and Alcohol Fuels Act, Renewable Energy Resources Act, Solar Energy and Energy Conservation Act and Solar Energy and Energy Conservation Bank Act, Geothermal Energy Act, and Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Act. This act would have devoted major federal funding to develop an integrated program utilizing a combination of Synthetic Fuels (coal liquefication, coal gassification, as well as exploitation of oil shale and tar sand resources), Solar and Wind Energy, Geothermal and Ocean Thermal Energy, Biomass and Alcohol fuels, and energy conservation programs with the aim of cutting U.S. oil imports in half by 1990, and eliminating them completely by 2000. We never hear of this these days because one of the very first thing Ronald Reagan did upon taking office was to eliminate the funding for the program from the budget. We all know the results of that short-sighted decision.

But what if Reagan had had an attack of common sense and had left these programs in his budgets. Furthermore, the programs are funded by the succeeding Presidents. The programs work as advertized, and our oil imports are cut in half from their 1980 levels by 1990, and completely eliminated by 2000.

What might have been the effects of this on the history of the United States and the World by the present day?
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