WATCHING WASHINGTON CONSENSUS ENERGY POLICY

With Patrick Crow Proposals for energy policies have abounded this year, and the latest one from the Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute in Washington offers some common sense advice. But it may come too late, since congressional energy committees already have written their basic energy policy bills.

Dec. 9, 1991

3 min read

Proposals for energy policies have abounded this year, and the latest one from the Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute in Washington offers some common sense advice.

But it may come too late, since congressional energy committees already have written their basic energy policy bills.

The institute brought together to forge a consensus energy plan former government policymakers Harold Brown, Frank Carlucci, John Deutch, Charles Duncan, Stuart Eizenstat, Robert Fri, Richard Helms, Melvin Laird, Edmund Muskie, Paul Nitze, Peter Peterson, William Ruckelshaus, James Schlesinger, and Paul Volker.

CONCLUSIONS

They concluded energy security is threatened by rising U.S. and other western dependence on Middle Eastern exports and said additional energy taxes - not price controls or market regulation - is the best solution.

"We support an end use petroleum tax to reduce oil consumption. Such a tax might be phased in over several years, for example, in steps of 20/gal each year over 5 years."

They advised against an oil import fee, explaining that might encourage oil exporters to raise their prices and unleash a political war between energy consuming and producing states.

"We do not believe that sufficient evidence is currently available about global warming or about the costs and benefits of alternative policy measures to mitigate the adverse climate effects of greenhouse gases to justify a carbon tax. "

They cautioned against massive government actions to encourage energy conservation "other than through the imposition of general end use energy taxes or tax incentives. End use taxes are the most effective approach.

"Appliance efficiency standards, building codes, automobile efficiency standards (CAFE), etc., may be useful but are a second best approach, For example, a tax on automobile weight is to be preferred over more stringent mandated CAFE standards."

They said the federal government should improve its own energy efficiency and remove market inefficiencies that work against energy conservation investments in regulated industries.

"We believe it an urgent matter for the federal government to design and implement an energy R&D program that addresses the development of basic technology and demonstration of technologies that give promise of cost-effectiveness. A program several times the size of the current effort is justified, restoring it to the level that prevailed before civilian energy R&D budgets were cut substantially during the 1980s."

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT BALANCE

They had no answers to the perennial problem of balancing energy production and environmental protection.

"A mechanism must be found for deciding in a timely fashion on the pace and extent of drilling for oil in environmentally sensitive areas: offshore and in the Arctic. The federal government owes the states affected an environmentally responsible solution to - but not a veto on - the use of federally owned resources."

The group concluded, "To avoid the growth of oil imports to a level that constrains U.S. foreign policy to an even more dangerous degree, new domestic and non-Persian Gulf foreign production as well as more conservation will be needed."