Troutman Sanders LLP came out yesterday with its excellent Washington Energy Report, and one item caught my eye. There’s a new bipartisan policy center that has been set up by former Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) chairman Curt Hebert Jr. and Allison Clements from the Natural Resources Defense Council that will focus on the modernization of the electric grid and challenges facing the electrical distribution of integrating wind, solar and other renewable resources.
They are looking to provide advice to FERC to remove market barriers for clean energy sources and new technologies. This sounds like a step in the direction of creating a national energy policy — and goodness, do we need it.
It’s generally accepted that China, Germany and India (and India is really coming with their solar industry) are the world leaders in the solar industry. What do they have in common? They have overall national policies that are designed to support the development of alternative energy sources. Meanwhile, the United States has yet to incorporate one, and it’s hurting our competitiveness.
I for one am becoming increasingly weary of the Obama Administration’s apparent inability to formulate a national energy policy. I realize the president has a lot on his plate (not the least of which is an unacceptable unemployment rate), but when an industry has created 100,000 jobs in this economy, it might be a good idea to create policies that support it.
I know, I know — Obama himself is being hampered by the Solyndra bankruptcy (which I argued yesterday shouldn’t even be a topic of discussion). But leaders lead, and it’s time that the administration get its act together on renewable energy and put its full weight behind a national energy policy, particularly on the solar industry. This bipartisan policy center might just be the push it needs to figure out how to put together a coherent national energy policy. At least, we can only hope.
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