Press Release: Statement of Chad Holliday

[one_half]For Immediate Release
September 13, 2011
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Contact: Paul Bledsoe
(202) 204-2400
[email protected]

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Statement of Charles Holliday
Chairman of the American Energy Innovation Council

Regarding a New Energy Report from the President’s Council of
Advisors on Science and Technology

“The American Energy Innovation Council (AEIC) is a group of America’s leading business executives who came together earlier this year to recommend ways to promote American innovation in clean energy technology. The group is united in its belief that technology innovation—especially in energy— is at the heart of many of the central economic, national security, competitiveness and environmental challenges facing our nation.

Drawing on collective insights from many years of successfully innovating in the private sector, AEIC developed energy innovation recommendations detailing how America can better invest in clean energy innovation to achieve a more productive national energy innovation system that will improve our prosperity, our security and our environment.

Today, the esteemed President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) has issued its own report, “Accelerating the Pace of Change in Energy Technologies Through an Integrated Federal Energy Policy” (www.ostp.gov) in which they provide a roadmap for the Federal role in transforming the U.S. energy system within one to two decades. The overarching transformation in the national energy innovation system that PCAST deems necessary is consistent with the urgent recommendations put forward by AEIC earlier this year.

In PCAST’s important new study, a comprehensive energy strategy is suggested along with significantly increased public investments in energy technology innovation. Both of these ideas were central to the AEIC’s Business Plan for America’s Energy Future. Enactment of these recommendations would be a critically important step toward creating a cleaner, more secure energy system for the American people.

That two different groups such as AEIC and PCAST should come to similar, high-level conclusions both on diagnosing the nation’s energy problems and priority remedies suggests that these are ideas that should be considered carefully. The AEIC intends to pay careful attention to PCAST’s valuable contribution and commends its work to the President, the Congress, and the American people.”