It’s now or never, and it’s not just the energy industry that’s pulling out all the stops to push a national energy policy through the Congress. Unnatural allies, business and labor, joined the rally with a press briefing Wednesday, the day before debate is scheduled to begin and a comprehensive energy bill, H.R. 6 is expected to emerge from the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Congress watchers were predicting that amendments would be limited to 15 to 20 and the bill would be voted out Thursday night to await the emergence of a Senate version, possibly a month later.

The Alliance for Energy & Economic Growth, comprised of nearly 1,400 organizations, chambers of commerce, unions, and companies, is revving up its public education campaign with support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The bottom line, according to the Alliance is: “Jobs and families are being hurt by energy price volatility that stems from inadequate domestic production and from the limitations of an energy infrastructure (such as natural gas pipelines and electricity systems) that must be expanded to meet customers’ future needs,” R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president government affairs for the Chamber of Commerce told the briefing.

“The failure of Congress to act has contributed to structural imbalances in natural gas markets, forcing prices to historic highs [and] causing more harm to the economy, homeowners, farmers, small businesses and manufacturers,” he added.

“Today, our economy is in an energy straightjacket. We have supplies of natural gas that are off-limits, we have oil in [Alaska National Wildlife Refuge] ANWR that is off limits, we have some 250 years of coal supplies that are limited for production, and we haven’t built a new nuclear utility in 25 years.”

The Alliance’s goals are:

To achieve this, the Alliance recommends Congress should remove burdensome and outdated restrictions on domestic energy supplies and infrastructure. Current overlapping and inconsistent federal, state and local regulations effectively prevent development of energy resources even in cases where available technology would allow such development to occur without adverse environmental effects, the alliance said. Also, Congress should reform the tax code to provide incentives and opportunities for increased affordable and cleaner energy supplies, energy efficiency, renewable energy and new technologies.

“It’s not just the energy industry that’s behind this, although we’re all working for it. It’s our customers, who are beginning to realize what’s ahead if something isn’t done,” one industry observer said. “The situation is critical, and it can only be solved by clearing the way and incentivizing energy and infrastructure development.

“If we don’t do something now, next year we’ll be talking about subsidies — the same way we subsidize critical agricultural commodities.”

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