Energy and the Environment

Policy Priorities for 2012

Air Quality Regulation

• Ensure that EPA evaluates economic impact and job loss in its regulations, as is currently required by all major environmental laws.
• Oppose efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions through existing environmental statutes, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act.
• Ensure that regulation of air emissions is based on sound science and focuses on performance and market-based programs where economically feasible, rather than on command-and-control mandates.
• Participate in all major rulemakings, including air quality, solid waste, Superfund and Superfund liability, clean water, chemicals, ozone, particulate matter, greenhouse gases, coal ash, boilers, and chemicals.
• Support fair implementation of air quality standards.
• Urge the federal government to take into account the growing impact of air pollution from outside the United States regarding compliance with domestic air quality regulations.
• Advance free trade in environmental goods and services.
• Oppose efforts to prevent oil and natural gas exploration and production through Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act regulations.

Chemical Management Reform

• Promote commonsense changes to the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) as Congress works to modernize our nation’s chemical management law.
• Promote “safe use determinations” of chemicals or classes of chemicals by EPA that effectively permit their use in commerce while simultaneously preempt state and local bans.
• Urge EPA to rely on scientifically valid and peer-reviewed data regardless of their sources.

Climate Change

• Support efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. A comprehensive legislative solution that does not harm the economy, recognizes that the problem is international in scope, and aggressively promotes new technologies and efficiency is needed. Protecting our economy and protecting the environment for future generations are mutually achievable goals.
• Support a comprehensive international agreement on climate change that has the widest possible participation.
• Oppose efforts at EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under the existing Clean Air Act, including the endangerment finding.
• Champion efforts by industry to develop energy efficient and low emissions technologies and export them to the developing world, where the bulk of new greenhouse gas emissions is expected to occur.
• Ensure that large emerging economies share responsibility for addressing climate change.

Coal Combustion Byproducts

• Challenge efforts to regulate coal ash waste as hazardous under the Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA) Subtitle C.
• Promote the beneficial reuse of coal ash by industry, states, and municipal governments.
• Ensure that EPA conforms with and applies all applicable laws and orders, including Executive Order 13563, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, the Unfunded Mandates Relief Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, applicable provisions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and other requirements.  

Domestic Energy Production

• Urge the administration to stop “slow walking” the permitting process for onshore and offshore oil and gas exploration and development and for coal mining.
• Support additional safety measures for offshore energy production but oppose efforts to create a regulatory environment so unfit for business that oil and gas companies take their business elsewhere.
• Urge Congress to lift moratoria and authorize environmentally responsible exploration for oil and natural gas both onshore and offshore, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and other federal lands now closed to drilling. Urge the administration to open additional federal lands for energy production and remove obstacles that prevent physical access to federal lands already leased for energy production.
• Advocate for the construction and operation of alternative and renewable energy projects such as wind energy facilities, nuclear power, hydropower, clean coal, solar energy, and geothermal energy.
• Urge Congress to pass legislation to streamline the permitting and appeals process for new energy projects in the United States.
• Urge the administration, Congress, and state leaders to adopt the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy’s platform of 88 actionable and achievable energy policy recommendations outlined in its 2008 Blueprint and Transition Plan for Securing America’s Energy Future.
• Enhance international energy security through diversification of supply.
• Oppose congressional and administrative actions that would undermine or restrict hydraulic fracturing and its ability to develop the enormous shale oil and natural gas reserves across the country as well as other domestic energy resources.  

Energy Laws of 2005 and 2007

• Advocate for full funding and implementation (primarily the innovative energy technologies provisions) of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 while preventing its repeal, rollback, or defunding.
• Ensure that the tax incentives and technology-enabling provisions of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 are implemented in a timely, economically appropriate fashion.

Energy Efficiency and Technology

• Increase public education and information accessibility concerning innovative energy technology developments that underpin policy negotiations related to ensuring adequate energy supply here and in international markets where U.S. business and industry operate.
• Continue a program of “clean energy technology dialogues” across the nation in partnership with state and local chambers. The purpose of the dialogues is to remove obstacles to developing and deploying clean energy technologies.
• Urge Congress and the executive branch to utilize the full $80 billion available to the Energy Savings Performance Contracts program, an energy efficient retrofit program for federal buildings that requires virtually no up-front taxpayer cost but suffers from drastic underutilization.

E-Waste

• Develop an industry consensus on federal regulation of the disposal of used electronic goods and ensure that federal policy on this matter preempts state policy.

Law of the Sea Treaty

• Support U.S. accession to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The treaty provides certainty in accessing resources in the Arctic and Antarctic and could ultimately enable American businesses to explore the vast natural resources contained in the seabeds in those areas.

Minerals Resources

• Support efforts to secure and develop domestic rare earth, platinum, and other needed mineral resources that are critical for clean technology development.

National Ocean Policy

• Work with the Council on Environmental Quality to ensure that it considers the impact on industry when making recommendations to the president on how to comprehensively manage our oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes.
• Ensure that any national ocean policy is limited in scope and not a backdoor federal effort to regulate climate change, air and water emissions, or energy production.

Nanotechnology Regulation

• Work with Chamber members to address nanotechnology issues and advocate for commonsense legislation and regulation, where appropriate, as well as continued federal funding for research into the environmental, health, and safety implications of nanotechnology.
• Work to ensure that federal regulatory agencies, particularly EPA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), implement a sensible regulatory structure that does not handicap U.S. leadership in the rapidly growing commercial area of nanotechnology.

North American Energy Security

• Continue to urge the administration to expeditiously issue a presidential permit to construct the Keystone XL pipeline.
• Work with Congress to repeal Section 526 of the Energy Independence & Security Act of 2007, which hinders importation of oil from Canada.

Outdated Environmental Laws

• Modernize the National Environmental Policy Act to streamline and enhance public participation in the review and permitting processes.
• Revitalize the Endangered Species Act to improve success in recovering species and promote cooperative partnerships between the federal government and landowners to reduce the law’s burden on local economies.

Permit Streamlining

• Use the Chamber’s Project No Project repository of stalled energy projects to urge Congress to pass legislation that streamlines the siting and permitting process and cuts down on the ability of Not In My Back Yard activists to bleed projects to death through prolonged delays.
• Work with the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness to make a set of realistic, commonsense recommendations of permit streamlining measures that can speed up infrastructure project delivery and create jobs.

Stimulus (Energy)

• Urge Congress and the executive branch to closely monitor energy programs funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to make sure that the intended funds are spent and the programs are implemented correctly and efficiently.
• Promote updates and/or modifications to energy programs created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, where necessary, to maximize those programs’ economic benefits.

Water Issues

• Continue the Invest in Water series to raise public awareness of the value of water to our economy through targeted regional events across the country that address the full range of water cycle issues. These include supply, conservation, drinking and wastewater infrastructure, innovative water technologies, energy-water nexus, water reuse, and water issues facing manufacturers.
• Educate Chamber members and policymakers about the tremendous local, national, and global economic implications of water policy and promote the use of sound science in setting policy.
• Monitor water supply, ownership, and quality concerns, including enforcement efforts targeting storm water discharges.
• Oppose efforts to unnecessarily expand the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act (CWA) beyond the statutory navigable waters of the United States contrary to the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, prior EPA and Army Corps guidance, and other applicable laws, orders, and requirements.
• Oppose efforts to create an unnecessarily burdensome stormwater permit regime.
• Oppose EPA’s efforts to impose unnecessarily burdensome cooling water intake requirements.
• Research and monitor domestic and world water issues and challenges.

 
Waste Issues

• Oppose EPA efforts to expand the definition of solid waste beyond the boundaries set by Congress. Oppose EPA efforts to change financial assurance requirements under the Comprehensive Environmental Compensation, Liability and Response Act (CERCLA) without congressional approval.

Yucca Mountain Implementation Plan

• Urge the administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to continue the licensing process for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository and support full funding of the process.

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