Environmental Law

Business Group Outlines Energy Agenda

By Dennis Pfaff and Kevin Livingston, Editors

One of the nation's most well-known business groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has unveiled a new set of recommendations for how the next president and Congress should deal with the country's energy problems.

The "Blueprint for Securing America's Energy Future" runs more than 70 pages and includes recommendations that even some in the environmental community might support. And others that probably wouldn't get much agreement from greens.

For instance, the chamber recommended exploring "innovative new regulatory models" that include rewarding utilities for energy efficiency, noting that electric companies are pushing for states to allow investments in efficiency to be treated the same as generation. The document also advocates extending federal tax credits for renewable energy for eight years, which has been a feature of legislation again stalled in Congress. In addition, it talks about using tax policy to encourage businesses to install energy efficient equipment.

At the same time, the chamber recommended expanding existing loan guarantee programs to increase the construction of nuclear power plants. Thelen LLP attorneys have in the past analyzed such government guarantee programs. 

In another area, the chamber also said that barriers to exploration and production of oil and natural gas on land and offshore must be lifted.

Additionally, the chamber argued that the government should not get "windfall revenue" from climate change policies, a statement that was not fully fleshed out but which the Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital speculated probably was aimed at the idea of auctioning emissions permits, as was done just the other day by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Auctioning of such permits, of course, has been a constant source of debate when it comes to market-based programs, and something that was just recently addressed by the architects of a yet-to-be-implemented trading system involving western states and Canadian provinces. 

The chamber also advocated against a "windfall profits" tax on oil companies. 

Other recommendations from the business group included increasing government investments in "clean coal" technology, establishing a new Clean Energy Bank modeled on existing institutions that support overseas American investment and taking other steps, including revising visa policies to attract foreign students and workers in the energy industry.

Obviously, some of the recommendations would be controversial. But retired Marine Corps Gen. James L. Jones (pictured), the president of the chamber's institute that delivered the document, called energy "a national security issue of the highest order," according to Environmental Capital. In a statement issued by the chamber, Jones said:

"With a challenge this urgent, we must encourage new partnerships that bring together the best of government, industry, and academia to create cutting-edge technology solutions to our long-term challenges. The blueprint’s 75 policy recommendations for America’s forthcoming political leadership aim to transform energy challenges into energy opportunities; unleash the power of America’s vast resources and innovation, and generate new supplies, new technologies, and new American jobs.” 
 

--Dennis Pfaff of Thelen LLP

Full post as published by Climate Law Update on September 30, 2008 (boomark / email).