In an April 26th speech to business leaders at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Nick Akins, President and CEO of American Electric Power, urged the U.S. to develop a comprehensive energy policy.
Akins explained that a recent “perfect storm of circumstances” – including EPA regulations, diminished reliance on nuclear power, and low natural gas prices – are making natural gas the de facto favored fuel for power generation. This is a concern for Akins, who points out that natural gas prices have been volatile historically, and that relying on a single fuel source for power generation is risky. [Columbia Dispatch]
Akins believes reasonable, comprehensive policy is the solution. According to Free Enterprise, Akins said “One of the biggest challenges [for AEP] certainly from a regulatory perspective [is that] regulations tend to change based upon what administration is in place. Really we do need an element of consistency there. And really, in many cases, the regulations need to be a partner instead of in the way.”
Do you agree with Akins’ call for a comprehensive energy policy? What might such a policy look like? What would need to be in place to achieve such a policy?
For years I’ve believed in “All of the above” as an appropriate strategy for devising a U.S. energy policy. It was heartening to hear the President’s call for exactly that in the past State of the Union speech. Unfortunately, the next day he began to parse what is and is not included in the word “All”.
That the country requires a guiding policy would seem to be self-evident, occupying the “Duh!?!” portion of the discourse. That it is not is due primarily to intransigent political positions. In short form, we need to “Drill, Baby, drill; green, Baby, green; and conserve, Baby, conserve”. Unfortunately, in that formulation there is something objectionable to every political activist, regardless of ideological point of view.
Akin’s call for a system in which the regulation of energy is more uniform across the states and less variable across administrations is essential. Indeed, the BP Macondo well blowout can be seen to be as much a failure of regulation as it was of BP’s lack of a safety culture: BP’s safety and environmental record was such that they should have been in the penalty box long before they started drilling the well. What are required are regulatory bodies that have the technical expertise to maximize our assurance of safety and environmental protection, then expedite all other aspects. The only possible direction forward is a cooperative effort between the various energy industries and their regulators. Decades of distrust stand in the way of that achievement.