General James L. Jones, USMC (Ret.), Blueprint for Securing America's Energy Future

Remarks at Unveiling of the Blueprint for Securing America's Energy Future

General James L. Jones
Institute for 21^st Century Energy
Fort Collins, CO

September 30, 2008

As prepared for delivery

Thank you all for being here today.  I have just completed a tour of the facilities at CSU, and have met with some of the researchers, students and innovators from CSU and the local business community.  It was great to see some of their impressive work up close.

I'd like to say thank you to Bryan Wilson for leading our tour and Ron Sega for hosting us here today and for all the work you have done and are doing with the Institute.

I also want to thank Senator Wayne Allard and Renny Fagan from Senator Salazar's office for being here today.  I know they have been big supporters of the work being done here, and for good reason.  I also want to thank David May who leads the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce.  David, thanks very much for your leadership.

I appreciate Bob McGrath highlighting the work of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.  And I am grateful to Tom Gendron, Ron Bills, and Doug Henston for talking to me about the research and work being done by their businesses.  These are the types of breakthrough technologies that will be so important to meeting America's energy challenges.

But beyond any particular advancement, the Collaboratory itself is an achievement.  The Collaboratory is defining and developing new relationships between the federal government, state government, academia, non-profits, private businesses and communities.  

This type of collaboration leads to more accelerated and practical solutions.  And like the Collaboratory, the Institute for 21^st Century Energy shares that drive for real, market-based, practical solutions. 

That is why we are here today to unveil the next component of the Institute's work – our Blueprint for Securing America's Energy Future.  But before I discuss some of the details of that, I'd like to talk about our nation's energy challenges, and why a new approach -- like the type outlined in this Blueprint – is needed. 

For my part, my first memory of energy as a public policy challenge was during the Oil Embargo of 1973.  Like millions of Americans, I can vividly recall waiting in a long line at the gas station, hoping that there would be enough gas to get me to work and then back home.

In response to this crisis, the U.S. government declared that by 1980, we would no longer depend on foreign nations for our energy.  At the time, we imported roughly 30 percent of our oil from foreign nations.  Today, we import roughly 60 percent of our oil from foreign nations.  Clearly, something went wrong...

More accurately though, some things went wrong.

You see, for the past four decades, the United States has had a conflicted, contradictory and shortsighted approach when it comes to energy. The potential impact of this neglect on the United States as a nation of leadership and influence in the world is beyond dispute. 

Following my 40 year career as a U.S. Marine I have a sense of what constitutes threat to our national security; failure to adopt a comprehensive and strategic vision to our national and international energy challenges is a security threat of the highest order…from our families to our national security.  We avoid facing up to this challenge at great risk. 

Americans have always risen to the great challenges of our time, and as we look around, we see that there are plenty of challenges to go around.  Now is not the time to relegate energy to the back burner; it is part and parcel linked to the strength and vibrancy of our economy.

So, what have we done about energy to get to where we are today?   

We have demanded more energy, and then restricted energy exploration and production.

We have embraced the promise of energy efficiency, and then been slow to implement it into our own energy-intensive lifestyles.

We have expressed concerns about possible brownouts or blackouts, and then opposed the construction of new power plants or transmission lines.

We have offered faith that new energy technologies will help us, and then underinvested in the research and development needed to make these technologies a reality.

Will Rogers once said, "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."  And for too many years, the United States energy policy has been to largely just sit there. 

And sometimes when government has gotten involved, it's actually moved us in the wrong direction.

This is not to say that government doesn't have an important role to play when it comes to energy.  It does.  We need the government to provide regulatory and legal certainty, and military and homeland security.  We also need the government to help lead advanced research efforts on transformational discoveries, and provide incentives and a financial backstop for major energy developments and projects.

But for too many decades, the government has been taking energy options off the table.  It has placed 85 percent of our oil and gas reserves off limits, underinvested in research needed to get clean energy sources into the marketplace, and constructed a regulatory framework that prevented new infrastructure from being built.

The United States can no longer afford this approach.  We are at a turning point when it comes to energy.  Global demand for energy will increase by more than 50 percent between now and 2030 – and by as much as 30 percent here in the United States.  And we must find new, viable and clean sources of energy to meet this surge in demand.

If we do not take this challenge seriously, America's economic prosperity, national security and global standing will be at risk. 

Over the next few years, the United States must take long- and short-term actions in order to address our energy challenges.  We are in a race against the clock.  And complacency is our greatest enemy.  For too many years, our views on energy and energy policy have been framed by the price at the pump.  If gas was inexpensive, things were fine.  If gas got expensive, there was a problem.

But today's high gas prices aren't the problem.  They are merely a symptom of a much larger problem.  Namely, that the United States still lacks a comprehensive, non-partisan, and long-term energy strategy.

And that is the work that we have focused on at the Institute.  Today, we unveil an Energy Blueprint that provides concrete steps that must be taken to move our nation towards a more secure energy future.

This July, we released an open letter to the next President and Congress signed by 27 influential national leaders.  It contained 13 fundamental energy pillars, and at the time, we pledged to build specific recommendations behind each pillar.  This Blueprint contains those recommendations.

But this Blueprint is not just a Washington-based, government solution.

This problem – this set of daunting challenges – will not be solved by government alone.  It is the private sector and its expertise, talent and capital that will lead us to a new energy future. 

So the Blueprint that we are unveiling here today builds on the principles at work here in Colorado – unconventional partnerships like this. 

The Blueprint is a collaborative approach, because as you all are demonstrating, the public and private sectors working together is the key to developing solutions that matter.   

The Blueprint is a new approach, because let's be clear – business as usual has gotten us into our current predicament, and cannot be tolerated anymore.

And the Blueprint is a comprehensive approach, because small fixes don't solve big problems, and in many cases they make things worse. 

Each sector of our economy and each segment of our population have a role to play in addressing this energy crisis:  From individuals and families, to small businesses and large corporations, from the state and federal governments, to the United States and the global community. All must be involved in this process.

So the Institute is laying out a comprehensive vision, but we are also providing the roadmap on how to get there. 

American publisher and author William Feather once said, "Beware of any man who won't be bothered with details."  And he was right.

So we have provided more than 75 specific recommendations for how to meet our nations, and the world's, energy needs.  These recommendations fall into four broader categories, which I'll briefly outline:

First is promoting energy efficiency.  While addressing our energy needs is a long-term challenge, we can reap short-term benefits just by harnessing the energy we waste every day.

One example where we can look to conserve energy is in our homes and workplaces.  Residential and commercial buildings account for roughly 40 percent of U.S. energy consumption, but there is little incentive for builders to invest in energy efficient technology. 

After all, these technologies are more expensive, they're largely invisible to prospective buyers, and the builders don't reap any benefits for installing them. Our electric utilities are in business to sell power not sell less power.  We need to change the incentives structure and reward business and builders for using less.

To correct this, we are recommending changes to the tax code and innovative new regulatory models that reward efficiency, especially for utilities—and ultimately their customers—for saving electricity through efficiency programs.

For our homes, we are recommending that transparent real-time pricing and smart metering be widely adopted to help people better track – and manage – their energy usage.

Our second category is increasing and diversifying our energy supplies. 

That means investing in new technologies for the future, particularly renewable sources of energy such as wind, solar, energy-from-waste, and advanced biofuels. 

New energy sources that expand our options are increasingly important.  The U.S. is now the largest producer of wind power, for example.

But the growth in renewable energy has been inconsistent and unpredictable – primarily because our investment and regulatory environment has been inconsistent and unpredictable.  Renewable energy tax credits, for example, have expired in 2000, 2002, 2004, and are set to expire again at the end of this year. 

This constant phasing-in and phasing-out of tax credits limits capital formation and investment in advancing these technologies.  So we are recommending these credits be extended for eight years and then phased out over the succeeding four years.  This will provide a steady window of certainty and opportunity, while also ensuring that these technologies ultimately succeed or not based on their own commercial merits.

In addition to better developing and utilizing renewable energy sources, we need to better utilize some of the abundant traditional sources of energy that we have here in the United States. 

Coal is currently responsible for generating more than half of our nation's electricity.  And at our current usage rates, there is enough coal in our reserves to last for well over 200 years.

The challenge is using coal in an environmentally-responsible manner.  To do that, we must develop carbon capture and storage technologies that will allow us to use coal while minimizing air pollution and CO₂ emissions. 

This technology has great promise, but is also complex and expensive.  So we are recommending increased support by both the federal government and the private sector for R & D into these technologies, so that their progress can be accelerated.

At the same time, we must also recognize that we cannot innovate or conserve our way out of this crisis.  To fuel America's economic growth, we're going to need more oil and gas and we are going to need for a long time to come.  And our economic and national security interests are going to be much better served if we have access to our abundant domestic sources.

Unfortunately, for several decades now, government policies have placed these resources off limits for exploration.  Today the ban on accessing oil and gas resources of federal lands and off our shores expired in the Congress.  This ban should permanently end and not be revived by the next Congress.  In fact, the next Congress should adopt a much more strategic approach to the long-term solutions which the public rightfully demands.

So our recommendations include making better use of the domestic resources on and off our shores with environmentally-responsible technology – and allowing states to share in royalties from such production. The way in which off shore drilling survived two recent hurricanes  underscores just how advanced our technology has come towards ensuring that we can protect the environment in times of natural crisis.

Let us also be clear on one other point…any dialogue about diversifying our energy supplies must include nuclear energy, our nation's largest emission-free source of electricity.  The United States relies on nuclear power for 20 percent of its electricity, yet we haven't licensed a new nuclear power facility in nearly 30 years. 

To increase nuclear's role, we must enhance the federal government's partnership with the private sector.  Our recommendations include expanding the existing federal loan guarantee program to support more than just two or three new plants.  And we also need a responsible "back end" strategy so that our used fuel can be recycled and then safely disposed.

Our third category is to invest in modernizing and protecting our energy infrastructure.  It's no secret that our nation's energy infrastructure is in decline, and key upgrades are long overdue.  Due to citing and permitting issues and 'Not in My Backyard' sentiments, the construction and expansion of everything from power lines to power plants has been delayed or cancelled.  The net result is a national energy infrastructure that is outdated, and unsuited to meet the growing needs of a 21^st century economy.

So we are recommending that the federal government have the authority to site new transmission facilities where capacity is needed across state lines. 

We are also encouraging states to make timely decisions on their own energy projects, so that we can cut down on the excessive delays that currently plague our energy system.

But infrastructure is more than lines and plants – it's also people.  And intellectual capital is just as important as financial capital if we are going to address our energy challenges.  Unfortunately, nearly half of America's energy workforce is expected to retire within the next ten years.  That is an extraordinary loss of talent, expertise and manpower – and it comes at a time when we need these things the most. 

Our existing pipeline of new workers will not be enough to cover the losses that are imminent.  The students participating with the Collaboratory are some of the best in the nation and the world, but we need more like them.  So we are recommending immediate action – in our schools, colleges, state governments and federal government – to develop programs, incentives and visa policies that will help our energy sector attract and retain the best workers. 

Our fourth category is improving environmental stewardship.  I mention this category last – not because it is the least important, but because environmental concerns are underscored throughout our recommendations.  If we want to address climate change, we must integrate environmental concerns into every plan, every decision, and every recommendation. And that is what we have done with this Blueprint.

As you have heard this afternoon, our recommendations -- which include the expansion of clean energy such as renewables and nuclear, the further development of cutting-edge technologies such as carbon capture and storage, and new efficiency projects -- all demonstrate that we can meet our growing energy needs while cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions. 

By moving forward in these areas:

• greater efficiency,
• increasing and diversifying our supplies,
• modernizing our infrastructure and
• improving environmental stewardship,

the U.S. can implement the energy strategy we need, and get access to the energy we require. 

There is no doubt that this is an extraordinary challenge – but it is also an extraordinary opportunity.  How we respond in the next few years, will determine America's role as a nation of great influence in the 21^st century and beyond.

But we will not be able to meet our 21^st century challenges by relying on 20^th century approaches.  These are different and more complicated problems, and they must be met by different and more comprehensive solutions. 

That is the approach we are taking at the Institute, and that is the approach we will need in the coming years from our government, from our business community, from our researchers and universities, and from individuals and families.

Working together, we can transform our energy problem into an energy opportunity – an opportunity to unleash the power of free markets to develop new supplies, invest and apply new technologies, and create good new jobs for Americans.

I hope you will join us in this effort – please visit our website to become part of our campaign for a more secure energy future for America.  Thank you again for all the work you are doing, and thank you for having me here this afternoon.