Modernize and Protect America’s Infrastructure
We must modernize, expand, and secure our energy infrastructure and address the shortages in our talent infrastructure—America’s skilled energy workforce that is rapidly retiring.
Address Critical Shortages of Qualified Energy Professionals
Significant portions of our energy and transportation infrastructure are inadequate and, in some cases, in decline. Whether it is a new wind farm or transmission lines that carry generated electricity to homes and businesses, investments are needed to modernize, protect, and upgrade these critical assets. Transitioning to smart grid technology will help improve the resiliency and efficiency of our power supply and must be a priority for the next administration.
In addition, siting and permitting issues have slowed the construction and expansion of power plants, refineries, pipelines, and electricity transmission lines. Organized opposition has resulted in delayed and cancelled projects. As a consequence, the resiliency of our entire national energy infrastructure—really a collection of many complex interdependent infrastructure networks—is at risk. We need clear and streamlined regulatory and licensing processes at the federal and state levels to allow industry to make large capital commitments with surety. In instances where additional transmission capacity across state lines is needed, the federal government should have authority to site needed electric transmission facilities.
We also need to address our talent infrastructure. Nearly half of America’s skilled energy workforce is expected to retire within the next decade. U.S. colleges and universities are attracting fewer graduates in chemical, mechanical, and nuclear engineering as well as in math and science. With expected increases in energy facility construction and operations through 2030 to meet projected energy demand, a highly skilled and technical workforce is necessary to ensure American competitiveness. New partnerships with community colleges and training programs, visa policies, and incentives must be implemented to attract young people to technical fields where they can develop and manage the energy systems of the future.
Modernize and Protect U.S. Energy Infrastructure
Our energy infrastructure is increasingly inadequate for our growing demand and economy. Blackouts, brownouts, service interruptions, and rationing could become commonplace without new and upgraded capacity. Critical energy infrastructure must also be adequately protected from both terrorist threats and natural disasters.
Stable energy supplies delivered to homes, businesses, and fueling stations across the country underpin a robust U.S. economy. More than 80% of our country’s energy infrastructure is owned and managed by the private sector. U.S. transmission lines span more than 200,000 miles, U.S. oil pipelines could circle the equator eight times, and U.S. natural gas pipelines carry natural gas over 1.8 million miles each year. Robust investments are needed to modernize, protect, and upgrade these critical assets, which are essential to America’s national security, economic security, and way of life. Federal, state, and local governments and the private sector must work together to enable needed expansions and upgrades to this aging infrastructure.
In August 2003, the power failure that affected 50 million people in the United States and Canada was not caused by a single extraordinary event on a single system, but rather a series of routine events that quickly became unmanageable because of an aging electricity distribution system lacking redundancy. National laboratories and others that have evaluated the weak points in our energy infrastructure have identified similar scenarios where a seemingly modest, routine occurrence can cascade into a debilitating energy supply disruption in very short order. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA2007) supports the accelerated modernization of the nation’s electricity distribution and transmission system. With the rapid deployment of smart power grid technology, our systems could self-diagnose and repair problems, accommodate new demand-response strategies, and promote greater efficiency through advanced metering and appliances that can interact with the grid using communications protocols that can be layered with electricity delivery. To improve security, efficiency, and reliability in our regional transmission grids, the next administration must place a high priority on transitioning to a sophisticated smart power grid.
In addition, most energy forecasts routinely assume that new power plants, oil refineries, pipelines, electricity distribution and transmission lines, liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, and tankers (as well as the roads, railroads, barges, and seaports that support energy production, conversion, and distribution) will be built or expanded whenever there is demand and a simple economic incentive to do so. Unfortunately, the reality is that regulatory uncertainty, permitting challenges, and litigation, as well as organized opposition, have delayed or suspended new investment in needed infrastructure. Capital has flowed to other investments offering quicker returns. Meanwhile, demand for new infrastructure in China, India, and elsewhere in the developing world has driven up the cost of steel, concrete, and manufactured components that make up much of our infrastructure. Therefore, the next administration should direct the DOE, in cooperation with the Department of Transportation, to undertake a robust, systems analysis of energy and associated infrastructure dynamics and requirements from 2009 through the year 2030, and ask the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) to incorporate this analysis into its forecasting methods. In addition, the new administration will need to vigorously exercise, and Congress will need to strengthen, provisions in EPAct2005 that provide federal backstop authority for the establishment of new electricity transmission lines.
In Section 7 of the Natural Gas Act, Congress gave the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) the authority to site natural gas pipelines, including eminent domain authority. EPAct2005 gave FERC authority to site transmission facilities, including eminent domain authority, but only under certain conditions – generally if state siting processes breakdown. Congress should simplify siting for electric transmission facilities and other energy facilities in interstate commerce (such as pipelines for carbon capture and storage) by giving FERC the same authority as it has to site natural gas pipelines under Section 7 of the Natural Gas Act.
Terrorist threats, cyber attacks, and natural disasters also have the potential to directly impact the reliability and security of our energy systems. It is incumbent upon the federal government to provide leadership and coordination with the private sector and international organizations to ensure protection of critical infrastructure. As outlined in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Infrastructure Protection Plan published in 2006, nine federal agencies are designated responsible for coordinating critical infrastructure protection for key resources, including transportation systems; nuclear reactors, materials, and waste; energy (petroleum, natural gas, and electricity); hydroelectric dams; and chemical facilities. Because our economy is closely connected with the reliability of global infrastructure, the federal government must more closely coordinate with foreign governments and international organization for infrastructure protection needs.
In addition, the nation’s four Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) sites hold approximately 727 million barrels of crude oil for use in the case of a severe supply disruption. In an interconnected global energy environment, SPR must be expanded to 1 billion barrels as authorized in EPAct2005 to ensure availability of crude oil in the case of a significant domestic or international supply disruption.
Address Critical Shortages of Qualified Energy Professionals
Our energy industry employs well over one million people today, yet nearly half of this workforce is expected to retire in the next 10 years. Presently, American universities are graduating fewer and fewer students in science, engineering, and mathematics. We need additional education and training programs, incentives, and visa policies that enable the American energy sector to attract and retain a new generation of human capital in an increasingly technological and globally competitive industry. We must entice young people to enter technical fields to build, maintain, and manage our nation’s energy systems.
Given the importance of the energy sector to the well-being of the U.S. economy, ensuring an adequate and adequately skilled workforce is a matter of national security. As the country’s energy sector expands to meet expected demand, thousands of additional workers will be needed to design, build, operate, and service tomorrow’s energy infrastructure. The drop in energy prices in the 1980s and 1990s, while welcome, had the perverse effect of leading to the closing of energy training and university education programs, many of which have not been resurrected or expanded. The demand for craftsmen (electricians, plumbers, welders, and machinists, for example), laborers, engineers, hydrologists, and other professionals is all expected to grow rapidly. However, the existing pipeline of new workers may not be big enough to offset the expected retirement of existing workers, which could result in the loss of critical institutional knowledge and experience.
The majority of graduate students in engineering and science fields at U.S. universities are not U.S. citizens. More than half of the doctorates awarded in engineering and computer sciences in the United States were to international students, according to the National Science Board. In the coming decades, the United States must be prepared to compete for talent. Restrictions on visa and immigration policies have deterred international graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and visiting scholars, who were otherwise likely to study and work in science and engineering fields in the United States. We need to do a better job of attracting U.S. students to these fields, especially as more and more foreign students—who historically stayed in the United States after school—are increasingly attracted to opportunities in their home countries. Until we do, we need to ensure that immigration policies allow U.S.-trained, foreign-born scientists to remain and immigrants with needed skills to work in the United States.
As we look to expand the number of graduates with science, engineering, and math degrees, we must also look to tap underrepresented demographic groups. For example, last year only 19% of students graduating with a bachelor of science degree in engineering were women, even though women accounted for more than 52% of all undergraduate degrees awarded. African Americans and Hispanic Americans are similarly underrepresented in the relevant areas of study. We must draw on the talents of all students at American academic institutions, from every background, to produce the daunting number of engineers, scientists, and skilled workers necessary to design, build, and operate America’s energy framework in the future.
The next administration must pay particular attention to effective education and training programs, incentives, and visa policies that enable the American energy sector to attract and retain a new generation of human capital in an increasingly technological and globally competitive industry.
As critical as this is, we must make a determined long-term effort to educate U.S. students even more in science and math, beginning in elementary school right through high school and college. Test results have shown that U.S. elementary students do reasonably well in science and math compared to their peers in other countries, but between elementary school and high school, the performance of U.S. students gets progressively worse. Somewhere along the way, our students are losing their enthusiasm for science and math and the valuable skills that will be needed in a highly technical global marketplace.
Improving the math and science curricula is a must, especially in the middle and high school years, to capture and maintain the interest of students. Recruitment of and training for qualified math and science teachers could help and should be pursued with greater vigor. The lack of a teaching degree should not be a barrier to otherwise-qualified people with educational backgrounds in math and science. School districts also should consider paying competitive salaries to math and science teachers and awarding raises based on merit, to both attract and retain qualified individuals. There are many individuals with exceptional backgrounds and skills, many of them retired, who—with the right incentives—could help address the shortfall in math and science teachers.
The America COMPETES Act, which was signed into law in August 2007, addresses in particular the insufficient investment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. However, Congress has not fully funded the amounts authorized in the bill. Given the stakes, the next administration and Congress must fully and vigorously implement the STEM provisions to improve math and science in the America COMPETES Act.