The Super Committee and Energy

Meaningful change in our fiscal future is impossible without input from the White House.  President Obama’s tendency to eschew leadership on important issues left the Super Committee negotiating in a vacuum.  With distinctly different perspectives on the role of government and the appropriate compromise for $1.2 trillion in cuts to the federal deficit, it’s no surprise that the committee members never came to common ground.

The President should have proposed an overhaul of the sector-specific patchwork of on-again-off-again incentives that confuse energy investments and hold back the “green jobs” he’s so interested in. 

At its foundation, government intrusion into markets picks winners and restrains robust competition.  What energy companies really need is confidence in the market.  This is not found in $16 billion of fuel-specific government expenditures, but in lower overall tax rates and a clear regulatory process.

President Obama also missed an opportunity to streamline pervasive overlapping and inefficient regulations and programs.  Certainly, the government has important roles to play in keeping the air and water clean and in the basic research that will spawn tomorrow’s advanced energy technologies. As head of the executive branch, the President is most qualified to identify and prescribe the right fixes to reduce wasteful and redundant government spending and bring us back to basics.   

The Super Committee was primed to move past the guttural extremes of slashing government support for fossil development or eradicating subsidies for alternative energies to find some points of certainty for energy companies, customers, and markets.  Instead, President Obama shirked an opportunity for leadership and left us to languish in the uncertainty of the sequestration process.