Jimmy Carter was, IMO, nearly as bad as Reagan on energy. While Carter was at least willing to fund a little bit of research into energy alternatives, he was still a pro-nuclear power man. He set us on the course of energy profligacy we find ourselves in today. Most people have conveniently forgotten that "the energy crisis" was a profit driven exercise to create the facade that has become the politics of scarcity. Carter oversaw that, and didn't do jack shit to reign in the oil companies when they pulled their "energy crisis" trick on the world.

Geraldo Rivera's only redeeming quality on this earth was to be the one adult who rented a helicopter and filmed the oil tankers lined up offshore of the eastern seaboard, waiting for gas prices to sky rocket before they sailed into port and made the killing that has nearly destroyed the planet. What did Jimmy Carter have to say about it?

Look at those long lines at the gas stations! We need more nukes!

Reagan, OTOH, just cut the funding for the alternative energy research that was just beginning to take off (and cost me & my partner our energy efficient construction company).

Carter had a mindset that said "with nuclear power, we'll always have enough energy." Because he was old school, he considered energy conservation to be more a moral issue in the religious sense, than in a practical, what is best for the planet perspective and world view.

I just don't agree that Jimmy Carter was a good president. He campaigned and was elected as a reformer in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, and the disaster that was Richard Nixon, who was the reform candidate to "fix" the disaster that was Johnson's foreign policy.