Building Consensus on a National Energy Policy Initiative
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From November 2001 through June 2002, CBI (with CBI Partner Raab Associates, Ltd.) collaborated with the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) to design and facilitate the National Energy Policy Initiative. The Initiative’s goal was to build consensus on national energy policy among a diverse group of distinguished energy experts, and to bring that expert consensus to the attention of policy makers in Congress and the Executive branch. Several U.S. Senators and Representatives, including then-Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), acted as informal sponsors of the Initiative.
The Initiative was a strategic response to a pattern of partisan conflict in national energy politics. Over the past 30 years, national energy policy has often been bogged down in ideological debates and short-term bargaining among political and energy constituency leaders. As a result, most policy initiatives have ended up as relatively modest “lowest common denominator” outcomes that met the minimum requirements of the most influential interest groups. Rarely has national energy policy produced joint gains in economic efficiency, environmental protection and national security.
Over the same thirty-year period, policy analysts and advocates, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs have generated many innovative ideas and programs with the potential to deliver joint economic, environmental and security gains–through technological innovation (e.g. commercializing high-efficiency gasoline and hybrid-powered automobiles) and through linkages between energy policy and other sectors (e.g. “smart growth” urban planning to reduce transportation demand). Despite their promise, these ideas and programs have generally failed to influence national policy. Shorter-term interests have dominated the legislative and regulatory process.
In the spring of 2001, the Bush Administration launched a new round of national energy policy making. By late summer, draft energy legislation had run into the same political problems that had bedeviled past efforts. September 11th and its aftermath gave new urgency to resolving energy policy conflicts yet made the debate on how to balance national security, economic and environmental goals more acrimonious.
Seeking to make a constructive and non-partisan contribution to the policy process at this critical moment, CBI and RMI launched the National Energy Policy Initiative. The Initiative had three interlocking parts:
- An Assessment of national energy policy political opportunities and constraints;
- A facilitated Expert Workshop;
- Dissemination of the Initiative’s results.
The Assessment was based on 75 interviews with senior officials in energy producer and consumer, energy service, environmental and regulatory stakeholder groups. It produced a useful map of broadly shared goals, areas of potential convergence on specific policy issues and issues which were particularly controversial touching on core constituency interests and values.
The Expert Workshop convened a group of twenty-two leaders in the field of energy policy in February 2002. Most of the participants had served in multiple, senior positions in government, the private sector and academe. Several had served in policy-making positions in Republican and Democratic administrations. Remarkably, given the diversity of the group and the complexity of the issues, the participating experts (with one partial exception) were able to reach consensus on:
- A diagnosis of major shortcomings in our current energy policies;
- A long-term vision for energy policy;
- A set of top priority areas for policy action;
- Policy strategies for each priority area.
After the Workshop, twelve other leading national experts endorsed its conclusions. RMI took the lead in disseminating the Assessment and the Expert Workshop Report to Assessment interviewees, the national news media, energy policy publications and Congressional leaders. In March 2002, Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Representative Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), Chairman of the Energy Subcommittee of the House Science Committee, co-hosted a Congressional briefing on the Initiative. In June, Congressmen Mark Udall (D-CO) and Zach Wamp (R-TN), co-chairs of the House Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Caucus, co-sponsored a presentation of the Initiative through the Congressional Environment and Energy Study Institute. Testimony on the Initiative was presented to the House Subcommittee on Energy Policy, National Resources and Regulatory Affairs.
Whatever the Initiative’s ultimate political impact, it has already made a significant contribution to a national energy policy process that has been stymied by ideological political debate and incremental interest group bargaining. An expert consensus building effort was able to generate a respected set of policy proposals with potential to address some of the issues at the heart of the political gridlock.
For more information on this case, please contact Managing Director David Fairman.
