American Chemistry Council (ACC) to press Obama on energy policy

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14 November 2008 00:00  [Source: ICB]

A comprehensive US energy policy is at the top of the agenda for the American Chemistry Council in 2009

AMERICAN CHEMISTRY Council (ACC) president Cal Dooley will press energy issues as the top priority for the US chemical industry with the incoming Obama administration and Congress.

"We hope that one of the first priorities of the Obama administration and the Democrat leadership in Congress will be to put together a comprehensive energy policy, and we would be most supportive of that," Dooley said in an interview with ICIS.

The US chemical sector is heavily dependent on natural gas as a feedstock and energy source and has seen gas prices almost quadruple since 1999.

The industry won a major victory in September, when Democratic leaders in the House allowed the 27-year-old congressional moratorium on offshore drilling to expire.

The nearly three-decade old ban had prevented exploration and development of potentially vast oil and gas resources in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) regions on the nation's Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

"We plan to reiterate to Congress and the Obama administration the importance of advancing a comprehensive energy proposal, building on the lifting of the OCS moratorium earlier this year," Dooley said.

He added that a comprehensive energy policy should include offshore drilling with sharing of royalty revenues with coastal states.

"I think that is an important and critical component for moving forward there," said Dooley. "In the context of a broader energy policy we should find ways to increase oil and gas production but also clean coal technology, greater conservation and energy efficiencies. We hope for quick action from Congress on this."

Dooley disagreed with some in the chemical sector and elsewhere in industry that the incoming Obama administration and more Democratic-dominated Congress will necessarily be more hostile to business interests.

"If we look at the Democrat gains in Congress, the profiles of those new Democrat members are more of the moderate to conservative persuasion, and I think they and others in Congress understand that we need a balanced approach to growing the economy and creating an environment for US businesses to be competitive in the international market," Dooley said. "Overall, I am reasonably confident that we have an opportunity to make our case to Congress and the Obama administration and see policies formulated in our interests," he added.

WISH LIST 2009

Dooley also named climate-change legislation and renewal of chemical site antiterrorism regulations as top items for the council's policy wish list in 2009.

Democratic leaders in Congress are keen to advance an aggressive cap-and-trade climate control bill that would mandate an 80% reduction in US greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2050 - a proposal that President-elect Obama also supports.

Such an emissions-control mandate would likely trigger a wholesale shift among US power utilities from coal as a fuel to cleaner-burning natural gas, with the potential for driving demand and pricing for natgas still higher.

"A lot of members of Congress are aware of the need for a very judicious approach on how we respond to greenhouse gas emissions, and I hope they will give consideration to the chemical industry and the fact that we use a lot of natgas and petroleum as feedstock in products that we make and that contribute to energy efficiency," said Dooley.

The ACC president would prefer to see the existing Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) law extended and made permanent in its present form. That law expires at the end of 2009 and Congress is due to write a new measure soon in the new year.

Some in Congress want a new chemical site security law to allow individual states to craft their own facility antiterrorism requirements and give federal officials authority to impose inherently safer technology (IST) on chemical plants in the context of security measures.

"We would contend that the interest of our economy is best served with one federal standard in terms of chemical security policy," Dooley said.

He maintained that the site security replacement bill introduced in Congress earlier this year did not advance in part because members were not comfortable with that measure's IST mandate.

"It is not appropriate to delegate that authority to bureaucrats," Dooley said.

Dooley, who previously served seven terms as a member of the US House, took the reins of the ACC on September 8.

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By: Joe Kamalick
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