Last week, dozens of elected officials, policymakers, and energy industry experts convened online for the fourth annual National Clean Energy Week (NCEW). This is always a great event, and if you missed it, recordings of the sessions are available on-demand. But this year it was particularly important for the insight its speakers provided on the American Energy Innovation Act (AEIA), the most sweeping national energy policy update in more than 12 years.
In separate speeches during the NCEW Policy Makers Symposium, the AEIA’s authors, U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) Chair Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Ranking Member Joe Manchin (D-WV), echoed the same sentiment: AEIA has a good chance of passing this year.
“If I was a betting man, I’m going to give it 75 percent,” said Sen. Manchin. “And my reason for that, we’re better than 50/50 right now, we’ve worked out most of the kinks. Right now, we’re caught in the big battle of the Supreme Court justice.”
One important obstacle was eliminated earlier this month. Three senators who had held it up in March managed to reach a compromise on an amendment on hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), which gave the AEIA a new lease on life. In fact, Sen. Murkowski spoke later in the day and offered similar encouragement to her audience, urging them “not to give up hope.”
“If we can agree to work together, we can still enact our bill in 2020,” she said. “And that will create a foundation for new efforts to do even more on clean energy in a commonsense, bipartisan manner.”
Another speaker, Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), also stressed that while there have been numerous energy innovation bills hung up year after year, the AEIA has unusually strong support in the Senate, and that Sens. Murkowski and Manchin are “inches away from getting floor time” on the package.
Later in the week, Sen. Coons capped off NCEW by introducing the Energizing Technology Transfer Act with Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA). That legislation, a nice complement to the AEIA, will help close the gap between research and commercialization by deploying U.S. clean energy innovations based at the Department of Energy.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives passed the Clean Economy Jobs and Innovation Act, which was specifically designed to align with the AEIA and be reconcilable in a conference committee this year. But it goes further than the AEIA, perhaps too far: The White House opposes the House bill’s funding levels and stating that it would undermine the Administration’s deregulatory agenda. On the other hand, some far-left activists would rather wait until the new Congress to get a more aggressive agenda through.
Needless to say, the end of the year should be filled with drama and suspense for energy advocates. Hopefully, our leaders can resolve their differences and get the AEIA done; in the wake of the economic downturn, the American people need the investment in energy innovation as soon as possible because it will create jobs quickly and accelerate growth.