Members of State Policy Network’s Energy Policy Working Group recently participated in the Washington Examiner’s latest policy series, “Restoring America’s Energy Dominance.” The series featured several energy experts and policymakers who reiterated through op-eds the importance of embracing domestic energy production—while abandoning the government’s practice of subsidizing one industry over others.
The Energy Policy Working Group at SPN is a coalition of state-based organizations working to improve energy policy—and ensure that energy is reliable, secure, and affordable to all Americans.
Across the country, Americans are struggling with rising energy costs and concerns over unstable grids that leave many without power. In this series for the Washington Examiner, members of the Energy Group, including SPN’s Amy O. Cooke, the Center of the American Experiment’s Isaac Orr, Commonwealth Foundation’s André Béliveau, John Locke Foundation’s Jon Sanders, and Independence Institute’s Jake Fogleman, offered policy solutions that give Americans reliable, clean energy at a price they can afford.
SPN Visiting Energy Fellow Amy O. Cooke wrote about the similarities between today’s energy policies and U.S. energy policy in the 1970s—highlighting in particular the push for Americans to curb their energy consumption and consume less:
“Nearly five decades later, the ‘consume less’ narrative is being implemented through energy efficiency programs for everything from lightbulbs to leaf blowers, bans on natural gas appliances, fuel standards for cars, and mandates to electrify transportation. At the same time, energy efficiency advocates, such as Lovins, are championing less efficient, intermittent sources such as wind and solar to power our grid, thereby forcing energy scarcity upon us.”
Amy went on to point out that both energy dominance and clean energy is possible:
“Energy usage, educational attainment, and economic prosperity go together. We should instead develop a reality-based mindset that we can develop our natural resources responsibly, enjoy a clean environment, and benefit from a healthy, thriving economy that relies upon clean, affordable, reliable, abundant energy.”
Read the full piece at the Washington Examiner here.
The Commonwealth Foundation’s André Béliveau argued an environmentally friendly but reliable electric grid is possible—and it starts at the state level. Béliveau held up North Carolina as an excellent model for other states to follow:
“In 2021, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a landmark, bipartisan legislation that accomplishes carbon reduction while prioritizing reliability and fiscal restraint.
First, North Carolina lawmakers accepted carbon reduction as a given. The bill states that the North Carolina Utilities Commission must take ‘reasonable steps’ to meet its carbon-reduction goals.
Second, lawmakers set these carbon-reduction goals by mandating reliability and least-cost procurement. By linking reliability and least-cost standards, they created an all-of-the-above approach with significant policy guardrails to limit sources threatening reliability or incurring unnecessary costs. Additionally, the bill requires reevaluation of any energy-generation plan every two years for technological innovations.”
Read the full piece at the Washington Examiner here.
Jon Sanders, the director of the Center for Food, Power, and Life at the John Locke Foundation in North Carolina, highlighted the many problems with wind and solar energy and subsidizing renewable energy projects:
“History is also littered with the failings of command economies directed by unimaginative autocrats and functionaries. Applying a command approach to energy only guarantees worse outcomes. Our ‘unsolvable’ problems in energy need freedom and time, not impatience and coercion.”
Read the full piece at the Washington Examiner here.
Isaac Orr, a Policy Fellow at Center of the American Experiment, outlined the many benefits of domestic energy production and explained how America can become the dominant energy powerhouse of the world:
“We must immediately bolster our domestic production and export capacity of coal, natural gas, and oil. We must relicense or restart existing nuclear power facilities and embrace a buildout of new nuclear power plants to reduce the need for imported fuels in the future. Lastly, the U.S. must also enact permitting reform that allows us to open new mines in a reasonable time frame while maintaining important safeguards for the environment.”
Read the full piece at the Washington Examiner here.
Jake Fogleman, a policy analyst at the Independence Institute in Colorado, highlights how regulations are stifling reliable, domestically produced power:
“Plainly put, the regulatory status quo has become untenable, and U.S. policymakers must do better. The country can no longer afford to allow energy regulation to continue down the road of agency mission creep and special interest capture, nor can it tolerate regulators that actively impede innovation at the expense of the country’s status relative to our rivals.
Any effort to truly restore and enhance American energy dominance on the world’s stage must prioritize regulatory reform above all else so that our producers are given the stability and room to innovate and do what they do better than anywhere else.”
Read the full piece at the Washington Examiner here.
