The Big Sale: Elk Hills, the Energy Crisis, and the Invention of the Neoliberal Market, 1969-1998

Peter Shulman

Tuesday, February 21st

4:30pm, Reception at 4:15pm

Clark Hall Room 206

In the middle of the 20th century, the most valuable piece of federal property was the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve, set aside decades before to provide oil for the military in future emergencies. In 1998, the Clinton administration sold the field for $3.65B - still the most expensive divestiture of a single piece of public property in American history. Selling this reveals the fraught ways Americans reconciled increasing national concerns with a drive to withdraw the federal government from the private economy.

Information retrieved from humanities.case.edu