Full Title: The Executive Branch and National Energy Policy: Time for Renewal
Author(s): Bipartisan Policy Center's Strategic Energy Policy Initiative
Publisher(s): Bipartisan Policy Center
Publication Date: November 1, 2012
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
The recommendations the Strategic Energy Policy Initiative is releasing today—the full report will be released in January—focus on improving energy policy development, implementation, and accountability in the executive branch of the U.S. government. The full report is aimed at jump-starting the process of rebuilding a bipartisan consensus for the next generation of federal and state energy policy, at clarifying the important energy questions and trade-offs the United States confronts over the next several decades, and at proposing a set of policy recommendations for resolving many of these trade-offs.
This report argues why the United States needs an energy policy, reviews the history of national energy policy making within the executive branch of the U.S. government, discusses key elements of a successful energy policy, outlines a new approach to organizing policy development and implementation within the executive branch, and concludes with two specific recommendations for improving governance at the federal level with respect to energy issues: 1) establish a high-level National Energy Strategy Council, chaired by the secretary of energy, to develop and oversee all aspects of U.S. energy policy; and 2) the Department of Energy should undertake an interagency Quadrennial Energy Review (QER) aimed at implementing the National Energy Strategy.