Chamber of Commerce to Obama Administration: Bright Future for U.S. Energy Requires ‘Government Getting Out of the Way’
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
By Penny Starr
cnsnews.com
(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says the key to solving the nation's energy challenges in a struggling economy is for the government to allow the private sector to develop domestic energy resources, including traditional sources such as oil and gas, as well as renewables.
Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the Chamber's Institute for 21st Century Energy, said this work requires the “government getting out of the way so investments can be made and revenue can be generated” by the private sector.
Harbert spoke Tuesday at the Chamber’s national headquarters in Washington, D.C., at an event to unveil the institute’s new plan, “Facing Our Energy Realities: A Plan to Fuel Our Recovery.”
The plan – based on an “Energy Reality Tour” involving travel to 30 states and meeting with some 15,000 business leaders across the country over the last year – calls for maximizing U.S. energy sources, ending regulations that hinder developing those sources, making clean energy more affordable and eliminating energy trade barriers.
“The point of this plan is to recognize our economic reality,” Harbert said. “And it is not to spend a whole lot of new taxpayers’ dollars.
“In fact, it’s to find ways that are increasingly revenue neutral; that will increase the availability of energy while at the same time removing barriers to investment that will actually create revenue and create jobs in this country,” Harbert said.
The plan will be submitted to the Obama administration and Congress, Harbert said.
“In this economic and political environment, policymakers are seeking solutions which will get us on the right path without bringing us further in debt,” Harbert said in a press release explaining the plan.
We’re proposing answers such as greater energy efficiency, more domestic production, streamlining – not weakening – environmental review processes, and eliminating trade barriers on clean energy goods and services,” Harbert added.
“All these solutions come at little or no taxpayer expense, but would dramatically improve our energy security in both the short and long term,” she said.
The plan also warns against the Environmental Protection Agency’s use of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act to shut down the development of domestic energy and, in turn, the elimination of new jobs that could come with the development.
When CNSNews.com asked about the plan as it relates to offshore drilling in the wake of the BP oil rig explosion and oil spill, Harbert said the Obama administration’s five-year energy plan does not increase domestic production and could even hinder it.
“We’re very concerned about the signals that are being sent from the administration that will prohibit the access to new leasing,” Harbert said. “The five-year plan that was put forward by the Department of the Interior takes more land off the table than it puts on the table.
“We’re seeing drilling and exploring being slowed down significantly, if not stopped altogether in Alaska,” Harbert said. “People are not yet back to work in the Gulf of Mexico.
“We will not be exploring off the coast of the Atlantic,” she said. “And so the access issue is a big issue for not just the energy industry but for America’s economy.
“So we call on the administration to examine its five-year plan,” Harbert said. “Is it appropriate for today’s energy reality and today’s economic reality?”
Harbert also said the private sector is responsible for most energy innovation and that Congress should make tax credits for private sector research and development permanent.
She announced that Chamber of Commerce staff would hit the road again over the next year to “build grassroots support from the business community for the proposals in the plan.” |
