Obama Review Promises New Energy Blueprint
The White House formally launches a Quadrennial Energy Review, with an initial focus on infrastructure.

Earthtechling, Pete Danko
January 14, 2014

On the day that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he was sorry, really sorry, this didn’t get a whole lot of attention. And maybe in the end it won’t deserve much. But President Obama’s formal establishment on Thursday of the Quadrennial Energy Review for the United States is at the very least a ray of hope that in the face of climate change -- and with a vast range of clean-energy and energy-efficiency technologies aching for just a little nudge forward -- the country might create a thoughtful, forward-looking energy policy.

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...“Americans and people around the world are already experiencing the very real impacts of climate change,” wrote three key administration officials on energy -- John P. Holdren, assistant to the president for science and technology and director of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy; Cecilia Muñoz, director of the Domestic Policy Council; and Ernest Moniz, the Department of Energy secretary -- in a joint post on the White House blog. “The QER process launched today is designed to further address the challenge of leveraging America’s domestic energy resources while strengthening our energy security and the health and resilience of our planet for future generations.”

Interestingly, while the American Petroleum Institute was silent on the QER, both the wind and solar industries put out press releases praising the president for initiating the process.

The White House has boasted that its “all-of-the-above” energy strategy has helped boost domestic oil production. But maybe Big Oil isn’t happy that the U.S. is using less petrol than it used to, and isn’t too fond of the president’s support for higher fuel economy standards, biofuels and electric vehicles...