Energy policy encompasses legislation, international treaties, incentives to investment, guidelines for energy conservation and taxation policies that determine how quickly an economy grows while mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.
Energy technology subsidies should be eliminated and government R&D should focus on conceptual research rather than premature commercialization; this will yield superior economic results than propping up one technology over another.
The U.S. Electricity Sector
kilowatt-hour (kWh) measures the energy consumed to illuminate a 100-watt bulb for 10 hours. Energy usage depends on many factors, including heating and cooling requirements, appliance use, personal transportation needs and lighting preferences; as well as subsidized or discounted products or services.
United States electricity grids consist of three interlocking electricity grids that connect most states together, and most investor-owned utilities belong to either regional transmission organizations or wholesale power markets in some capacity or another. While investor-owned utilities tend to be vertically integrated – owning both plants and lines – while some have adopted deregulation measures by joining RTOs and offering retail choice services to their customers.
RTOs and wholesale power markets are designed to promote competition by creating an open platform where producers and buyers can conduct free trade. Legislation setting clear legal and market conditions can help ensure this system works as intended, and can remove barriers to investment in new energy technologies by encouraging private-sector participation as well as providing legal protections against anticompetitive conduct.
The U.S. Oil and Gas Sector
The United States is home to the world’s leading oil and natural gas producer. This industry provides millions of jobs and reliable transportation fuel sources; additionally it supplies industrial products like plastics and fertilizers.
Innovative technologies, such as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, have opened up vast new oil and gas reserves in the U.S. This has resulted in rapid increases in oil production over time.
Fossil fuels are heavily supported by government spending in the form of tax credits, direct expenditure and research funding; these subsidies distort their price when compared to renewable energies.
The American Petroleum Institute (API) has called for the formation of an Energy Council, to oversee federal agencies involved in energy permitting, production, generation, regulation and transportation. They state that President Donald Trump’s anti-fossil fuel agenda is harming Americans; their trade body notes the Nov 5 elections showed US voters favour an “all-of-the-above” energy approach rather than climate policy focussed policies of his new administration. They suggest this council be formed so as to cut bureaucratic red tape while encouraging private sector investment by cutting bureaucratic red tape while increasing private sector investment opportunities and cutting bureaucratic red tape through government channels.
The U.S. Coal Sector
Coal represents an energy sector with deep historical roots in America. Once associated with steel production and electricity generation, but more recently with lung disease for miners as well as degraded landscapes, acidified streams, precipitation acidification and the release of climate-warming gases, its legacy continues to haunt local governments today – from insufficient revenue generation to repay debt and provide basic public services without new job opportunities as well as pressure for greenhouse gas mitigation measures. Today however, coal producing counties face an economic decline which threatens further compound their challenges: these local governments need sufficient revenue generation in order to raise sufficient revenue in order to meet current obligations while mitigating greenhouse gas emission mitigation requirements from increasing greenhouse gas mitigation requirements from greenhouse gas mitigation mechanisms arising. Today coal producing counties face an economic decline which threatens further compound their challenges due to reduced revenue generation from reduced mine output as well as pressure from climate mitigation requirements from greenhouse gas mitigation legislations from policymakers for climate-warming emissions mitigation quotas being applied.
Market forces and the rise of renewables have diminished coal’s dominance of power generation, but policy changes may further erode future demand for coal-fired electricity. Meanwhile, productivity gains will impede coal producers’ ability to increase domestic coal production (while benefitting from declining natural gas production costs). And competition on export markets may intensify as labor-short Western states take share from capital-heavy East regions.
The U.S. Renewable Energy Sector
Renewable energy’s rapid rise can be seen as the result of positive initiatives and policies at both federal and state levels, where cost reductions in wind and solar have significantly outpaced cost increases over the last decade. Businesses with sustainability goals have played an instrumental role in driving demand and adoption for these technologies.
Renewables overtook coal as the dominant source of net electricity generation in 2023 in the US and made up an increasing portion of new utility-scale capacity (including energy storage capacity ). Yet the public remains divided on how best to balance these various forms of energy production.
By party affiliation, most Republicans and Republican-leaning independents believe a transition away from fossil fuels would make home energy prices worse, while only 23% of Democrats agree. On the other hand, self-described Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents generally support developing alternative sources such as wind and solar as part of an energy mix solution; there are strong differences over economic impacts from climate policies intended to lower emissions.