A new State Department bureau focused exclusively on energy is opening shop today, a sign of the increasing importance of energy in U.S. foreign policy and national security.

The new Bureau of Energy Resources will aim to help shore up stable supplies of affordable energy for the United States. It will also promote clean energy, market changes to make alternative energy technology more competitive and sustainable energy as a way of boosting economic growth in developing countries.

"You can't talk about our economy or foreign policy without talking about energy," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a speech last month, referring to the creation of the new bureau.

The Bureau of Energy Resources succeeds and expands on the existing office of the envoy for international energy, with a six-fold increase in personnel. It is headed by Carlos Pascual, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and Mexico.

Pascual said the office's main goal is to manage "the geopolitics of the energy world" and will include close engagement with China, as well as a focus on the revolution in natural gas markets spurred by technological advances that are allowing companies to tap previously inaccessible reserves (Keith Johnson, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 16). -- AS