Big business: U.S. Chamber of Commerce details energy blueprint
Republicans in Congress liked to tout an all-of-the-above energy policy. They have nothing on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy today unveiled its detailed energy prescriptions for the next administration, putting some red meat on the “13 pillars” the group published this summer in an open letter to the President and Congress.
The smorgasboard of energy proposals calls for greater government support for energy efficiency, renewable energy, an international climate-change accord, more domestic oil production, more nuclear power, more clean coal, alternative fuels for transport, and bigger and better energy infrastructure.
Retired Marine General James Jones, president and CEO if the Institute, called it “critical” that the next president make energy policy a priority, and called it a “national security issue of the highest order.”
Today, the Institute fleshed out some of the generic ideas in the open letter in July with 75 specific policy proposals. Among the highlights:
# Change the way power companies operate to make their priority energy efficiency, not selling more juice, and change the tax code to make it easier for business to invest in newer, more efficient machines
# Make sure the government doesn’t get any windfall revenues from a climate-change program, presumably by auctioning emissions permits to business and industry
# Open up government energy research labs to venture capitalists to help commercialize new ideas more quickly
# Create a quasi-governmental Clean Energy Bank that can help underwrite the development of new technologies, including next-generation nuclear power
# Solve the problem of nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain once and for all, and in the meantime use private storage facilities to keep nuclear power in play
# Get electricity ratepayers, not just taxpayers, to help underwrite the quick development of clean coal technology
# Extend federal tax credits for renewable energy to 8 years, rather than the normal 1 or 2 year tax break
# Tweak biofuel subsidies so that they fall when the price of oil rises, and vice-versa
# Expand the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and think about including refined products like gasoline, not just crude, inside the salt caverns
Just in case senators McCain and Obama haven’t been listening, Gen. Jones said the Institute will also publish a “transition plan” to help the next president find his bearings on energy. Stay tuned.
Posted by Keith Johnson
Environmental Capital — WSJ.com
30 September 2008
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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