Energy In the Center of the Policial and Economic Arena

This past year has been a perfect storm for energy. In just one year, the energy industry has been severely hit with natural disasters, man-made disasters, brutal partisan politics, international chaos, financial chaos and a tepid U.S. economy. The culmination of all of the above has landed the energy industry in the center of the political and economic spectrum.

Now and with urgency, our country needs a strong, clear, clean energy policy that will address the technological and financial challenges of all energy sources - oil, gas, renewables, nuclear and coal. Unfortunately bold action often becomes confused with partisan rhetoric and provides no real solutions to our energy crisis.

Yes, the Democrat’s plan to eliminate the egregious oil depletion allowance is a good one, but that really won’t make the price of gasoline go down. Yes, we need more domestic supplies of energy, but offshore drilling is no panacea and only begins to address domestic energy supplies. While Carbon reduction looms huge on the horizon, it is safe to say that any such legislation is DOA in the 112th Congress. Furthermore, Japan’s nuclear disaster in Fukushima has put a kink in the role of carbon free nuclear energy.

At the heart of our Clean Energy Initiative’s Electricity 2.0 program is the need to replace, modernize and expand our energy infrastructure with a co-equal goal of addressing our mounting environmental problems. In our country, we are blessed with intellectual heft that can provide innovative clean energy technology, now, what we need is leaders who can provide smart, flexible, and politically survivable solutions.

Here are some solutions that should occur without delay:

Regulatory Framework - provide regulatory rulings that uphold just, reasonable rates and non discriminatory policies but allows for and creates flexibility for transmission challenges and infrastructure innovation.

Get Real about the Environment – even though recent polling says never to use the “E” word (environment) – legislators, regulators, stakeholders and the public need to get real about climate issues and find flexible workable solutions to address carbon.

Clean Energy Deployment Administration – it is essential that we help our clean energy inventions move into the commercial marketplace by providing financing to get technologies over this critical development hump.

Commitment to Research and Development – a hallmark clean energy is continued and increased monies for R&D to develop more innovations in clean energy technology and to refine technology to bring down the costs for consumers.