Why has the US accepted a position of inferiority around energy issues?

by Stacy Bare

Alongside representatives from American agriculture, religious, and labor groups, I had the opportunity to see first hand how environmental and energy policies have been implemented throughout Europe.  More importantly, we met the individuals and organizations who were turning these policies into economic and political reality at the local, regional, national, and European level. 

Following a number of meetings demonstrating successful implementation and investment in clean energy focused policy, I had to wonder why the United States was lagging behind Europe in the drive to create jobs, increase consumer choice in utility provision, reinvigorate regions previously decimated by the collapsing domestic coal economy, and asserting itself in global dominance for energy and energy technology creation.  Having spent the majority of my life so far as part of the greatest fighting force on earth, in the US Military, I did not understand our nation’s own position of inferiority.  America does not settle for second or third place ever.  So, why have we been willing to accept a position of inferiority around energy issues?

I came up with four general responses to my own question based on comparing what I had learned in Europe to what I am experiencing in the United States:

1. Lack of Partisanship.  While it is true that environmental and energy issues have been partisan issues in the past throughout Europe and to some extent still are, there is consensus throughout the political spectrum that the future lies in renewable energy and that work needs to be done to bring about further innovations and market actors to bear to decrease dependency on fossil fuels.

In the United States, our political discourse is still entirely too dominated by old school energy companies who have outspent renewable energy concerns in our federal government at a rate of 20 to 1 since 1998  and benefit from polarizing political discourse.

2. Energy Pricing and Feed in Tariffs.  Throughout Germany and Europe, energy seems to be more realistically priced than in the United States.  Europe does not have the significant subsidies that we do to reduce the cost of energy, specifically to coal and natural gas, so the cost of energy in Europe is higher to begin with, making a one to two cent increase in kilowatt hour to fund renewable energy technology and feed in tariffs, a smaller net percentage increase to the price of a kilowatt hour than in the United States. 

Until the United States decreases subsidies to fossil fuels, renewable energy will continue to struggle to garner the necessary economic foothold to compete.  This will lead to the United States continuing to fall behind the global rush towards economic power through energy innovation, leaving us more dependent on other nations who do not have our best interests in mind.  While feed in tariffs are not a long term solution, they are a helpful and necessary step to get to long term solutions.

3. Deregulated Utilities.  Throughout Europe, the utility market is much less constrained than in the United States, allowing for the entrepreneuring farmer whom we met in the Czech Republic, to innovate a better, more cost efficient way of distributing heating and energy production than existing providers.  To date, the utility system in America represents a significant monopoly that is choking out energy entrepreneurs and small businesses as well as preventing distributed power generation.

The United States needs to deregulate utilities to allow for greater consumer choice and distributed power generation while favoring and investing in innovation and technology, which will drive efficiency and economic profit.

4. Coal and Oil are not the Devil.  In North Rhine - Westphalia, a historic coal producing state in Germany, the government and the local population has embraced, through economic necessity, the need to shift to new forms of energy generation without demonizing the coal industry, instead recognizing the positive contributions the coal industry gave to both the region and Germany as a nation.

The environmental and clean energy movements in the United States needs to give positive recognition to the benefit that coal and oil have given to the United States in the past, specifically to the labor force, while engaging them in creating positive solutions for the future.
 
I walked away from the trip with the recognition that the journey from a fossil fuel dominated energy economy in the United States to one where the emphasis was on innovation and renewable energies, including bio fuels, solar, wind, and others, does not have to be as difficult as it is often made out to be and that other countries, specifically from Europe in this case, offer helpful hints and lessons learned throughout their own transition.  We do, however, have to put aside our political name calling and focus on common sense solutions to when and how we want to reassert our dominance in the global arena.
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Stacy Bare is Director of Opeations at Veteran Green Jobs and Co-Founder of Veteran Expeditions. From September 26-October 2, 2010 Bare participated in the EU Low Carbon Economy Tour, a 7-day study tour that brought a diverse group of 4 US representatives from veteran-, religious-, labor- and agriculture groups to the Czech Republic, Germany and Belgium for discussion of low carbon growth strategies.

Watch a video interview with Stacy Bare