NASEO recommends energy actions for federal lawmakers

The National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO) has released a report with recommendations for both Congress and the Administration on key energy and climate priorities for partnership at the state level.

NASEO’s Bipartisan Energy Priorities and Policy Recommendations for Congress and the Administration calls for state-federal coordination to meet energy, climate, security, and economic imperatives. It also makes recommendations for energy security, emergency preparedness, and resilience actions to save lives and livelihoods; energy system modernization and decarbonization to support security and economic growth; energy technology innovation and deployment to create jobs and transform the transportation, buildings, manufacturing, and electric sectors; energy workforce development to ensure the workforce has the skills necessary to obtain high-quality jobs and to help meet our energy goals; and consideration of equity and inclusion in energy policies and programs to reduce energy burdens and to ensure all residents of the nation have access to energy opportunities and solutions.

Further, the report highlights some legislative proposals that NASEO supports, including the American Energy Innovation Act (S. 2657). NASEO supports this bill, which calls for increasing energy affordability, making it cleaner, bolstering workforce development, and strengthening energy security. This legislation strengthens and reauthorizes appropriations for the U.S. State Energy Program and Weatherization Assistance Program.

NASEO also calls for the passage of key provisions of the Moving Forward Act (H.R. 2) and Clean Economy and Jobs Innovation Act (H.R. 4447), which support state-federal partnerships such as the U.S. State Energy Program, Weatherization Assistance Program, mission-critical facility resilience, and efficiency, electric transportation, residential efficiency, utility arrearage repayment, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, storage, and other actions.

In addition, the report calls for the funding of the Open Back Better Act (H.R. 7303, S. 4060, H.R. 2, H.R. 4447), which would provide federal funding for resilience retrofits and program operations and would utilize private-sector and state financing to pay for energy efficiency retrofits in federal, state, and local mission-critical facilities.