The global energy map is being redrawn at an accelerated pace. All signs point to the United States becoming part of an increasingly hemispheric energy trade, both for oil as well as for biofuels like ethanol. The Middle East will still loom large in U.S. energy policy given its crucial role in the world oil market, but U.S. energy officials and companies are forging deeper ties with their counterparts elsewhere in the Americas.

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Drawing on lessons from a Council on Foreign Relations workshop in January 2012, Blake Clayton and Michael A. Levi examine the connection between global oil markets and international relations, saying that in many cases the oil trade is politically consequential simply because policymakers believe that it is.

After decades of fueling hunger for oil in the United States, Europe, and China, Blake Clayton says that the Middle East itself has developed a voracious appetite for energy.

Blake Clayton says what's really behind New York's epic gasoline lines in the wake of Hurricane Sandy is the problem of getting gas and power to gas stations, with panic buying making things all the worse.

Blake Clayton says the biggest challenge of building the twenty-first century energy economy isn't just the transition from dirty fuels to cleaner, sustainable ones; it's about making the advances of the last two centuries available to the world's poorest people.

Blake Clayton argues that cyber attacks on oil and gas operations are the new face of energy insecurity, with vast potential for crippling effects on global energy prices and nations far beyond the Middle East.

Blake Clayton says Iraq is in a unique position to help take the edge off a global oil market under serious strain, but time will tell whether the country will achieve its lofty goals—or if they will remain a mirage.

Blake Clayton and Greg Sharenow explain how the threat of a Strategic Petroleum Reserve release is a tantalizing tool to influence the oil market and consider whether the White House is the new Federal Reserve of oil.

In an article launching a new Forbes.com blog, "Risk and Return," Blake Clayton says that President Obama, having learned the hard way last year that a Strategic Petroleum Reserve release can't reliably lower oil prices for very long, is likely weighing the potential political costs of a release versus its possible economic benefits.

In a new article for Foreign Policy, Blake Clayton argues that it's Western politicians, not Arabian sheikhs or OPEC officials, who are roiling the oil markets today.

Blake Clayton argues for greater transparency about the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve's capabilities to release oil to the market, particularly in light of profound recent changes in the North American oil landscape.

Blake Clayton argues that energy officials should look to the 2011 International Energy Agency-coordinated Strategic Petroleum Reserve release for insight into when it makes sense to draw on national oil stockpiles.

As Libya was in the throes of civil war, the International Energy Agency coordinated the release of emergency oil reserves for the third time in its history. CFR Fellow Blake Clayton analyzes the economic, political, and logistical dimensions of this episode, drawing lessons for future energy interventions.

Blake Clayton says Wall Street is not to blame for high gas prices.

As Cuba drills its first offshore oil well, the United States should anticipate the possibility of an oil spill, implementing policies that would help both countries stem and clean up a spill in a way that is minimally disruptive to the United States' Cuba strategy.