Energy, Environment and Resources Center

Jack Barkenbus EERC Executive Director

FROM THE DIRECTOR………

For Want of an Energy Policy

One of the recurring refrains noted by those of us who have been tracking energy policy for a number of years is the assertion, “We have no energy policy in this country.” This assertion is clearly mistaken, since our energy policy is simply the sum of all legislation, regulation, and norms bearing on energy.

Still, the inference behind the plea is always that we lack an internally consistent, coherent, forceful, and salutary energy policy that can achieve our energy goals. That much is surely true, but it is not because we’ve never known this or never tried to produce such a policy. No, we’ve been down that path many times before with little to show for it.

A meritorious effort to produce the blueprint for such a policy has just concluded, and the resulting final report should be required reading for all players in the energy arena. The National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP) has been toiling for more than two years to produce a bipartisan set of findings that could identify and define the center of the energy debate.

NCEP, a joint initiative of several foundations, was consciously structured to be led by a bevy of expert commissioners coming from backgrounds as wide ranging as business, environment, government (Republican and Democratic), academia, think-tanks, and national laboratories (Marilyn Brown of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was one of the 16 commissioners). The final report, Ending the Energy Stalemate, is accompanied by a number of voluminous technical studies that form the underpinning for NCEP’s recommendations (the report and backup material can be found at <www.energycommission.org>).

The report contains numerous recommendations that would increase the supply of domestic energy sources, promote innovative energy technology research, and enhance energy efficiency. Some of the more notable recommendations include: (1) strengthening federal fuel economy (CAFÉ) standards for cars and light trucks, (2) establishing a flexible cap-and-trade program to reduce the nation’s emissions of greenhouse gases, (3) providing manufacturers and consumers with incentives for the production and purchase of the most fuel efficient automobiles, (4) providing financial incentives for early deployment of integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) coal technology, and (5) establishing a bolstered cellulosic ethanol energy resource program.

Just as noteworthy as its recommendations for energy policy are the things that NCEP didn’t recommend, such as oil production from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and expanded natural gas exploitation off the coasts of the continental United States and from public lands in the West.

The Congress and the Bush administration should leap at the opportunity presented by this bipartisan commission in its recommendations, particularly after seeing how gridlock and divisiveness have hampered their own efforts to move forward with energy policy up to this time. So what has been the response? You guessed it: virtual disregard, as far as I can tell. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, even questioned the audacity of the Commission to produce recommendations independent of Congressional input. Clearly, Congressional and administration leaders would prefer to see the current pork-laden, supply-heavy, 1970s version of energy policy rammed through Congress this session.

The current approach to energy policy now being pursued by Congress will only lead to continued divisiveness and to the predictability that, five years from now, someone in all earnestness will proclaim, “We have no energy policy in this country.” It’s a pity. We’ve got one sitting on the table, and our own political leaders are unwilling to pick it up.