Energy Future Coalition (EFC)

A plan for a new energy future

Strategy and Approaches

The Energy Future Coalition's analysis of past efforts to affect U.S. energy policy found them to be too academic, too narrow, or too sectoral, and for the most part uninformed by practical political experience. The Coalition has focused on practical political coalition building, reaching out to new partners in the business and labor communities and avoiding battles that have been fought in the past, or that clearly divide along partisan lines. The Energy Future Coalition has outlined policy options that are significant in their own right, that will attract the support of important political constituencies, and that will create a compelling response to the three energy challenges driving this initiative:

• The political and economic security threat posed by the world's dependence on oil.
• The risk to the global environment from climate change.
• The lack of access of the world's poor to the modern energy services they need for economic advancement.

From the beginning, the Coalition adopted the following statement of principles to guide its actions:

1. The Coalition will be a diverse, inclusive, and non-traditional partnership
   of business, labor, nonprofit organizations, and individuals.
2. The Coalition will be non-partisan.
3. The Coalition will encourage policy options that emphasize technological innovation without constraining consumer choice.
4. The Coalition will educate and advocate on the benefits of clean, affordable, and sustainable energy production and use, both in the United States and abroad.
5. The Coalition recognizes that the transition to a new and sustainable energy economy will take years - indeed, decades - to achieve, and will also pursue shorter-term objectives

The Coalition is organizing its public policy initiatives around the following premises:

• America will be constrained by its linkage to the Persian Gulf - and the global economy will be at risk - as long as it depends solely on oil for transportation.
• The U.S. cannot make major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions unless it transforms its use of coal for electricity and oil for transportation.
• The U.S. can lead the way in the development and distribution of new energy technologies that draw on locally abundant resources and that operate cleanly and safely. In so doing, Americans will serve their own security and economic interests and the well-being of people everywhere - stimulating investment opportunities, job creation, and economic growth.
• Energy efficiency is the cleanest and cheapest source of energy for the U.S.