[Editor note: This response to the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee’s March 21, 2011, “White Paper on a Clean Energy Standard” is by Glenn R. Schleede, citizen, taxpayer and consumer. He is retired after working more than 35 years on energy policy matters in the federal government and the private sector. ]
Thank you for undertaking a de novo review of the matter of a potential “clean energy standard.’ Such a review is far preferable to previous attempts to force such a standard on the people of the United States without adequate consideration of its cost and benefits.
My comments are directed towards fundamental issues that are not addressed directly by the Committee’s six major questions or thirty-three subsidiary questions; i.e., the fundamental issues of:
…· Whether assumptions underlying proposals for a “Clean Energy Standard” or similar proposals are valid, and
· Whether actions by governments to select, promote, or mandate particular energy technologies and sources are in the national and public interest.