US Chamber Energy Plan - Lotsa Drilling, Lotsa Coal, Lotsa Deregulation; Bones For Renewables

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The business lobby, derided by environmentalists for opposing last year's climate change bill, put out an energy plan Tuesday that drew praise from fossil energy industries and threw a few bones to the renewable sector. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce stuck to its familiar call for more domestic oil and gas drilling and against newly-enforced greenhouse gas regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency.

But it called for a permanent R&D tax credit, a clean energy bank, more federal oversight in locating transmission lines crucial to the development of wind and solar energy, and reaffirmed its commitment to extendingtax breaks for renewable power.

"The Chamber energy plan has a few elements that will increase clean energy innovation and job growth," said Daniel J. Weiss, director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress. "But it also proposes to weaken the safeguards that protect public health from air and water pollution." Chief among critics' concerns is the Chamber's call to prohibit EPA from enforcing greenhouse gas rules.

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"Access to more domestic energy resources is intentionally being limited by policy and regulation," the report said. "We can ill afford to turn our backs on the significant resources that we have here at home." But Weiss said an emphasis on more domestic drilling is a distraction from reality, noting that the United States uses 20% of the world's oil but sits on just 2% of its proven reserves. "There's no talk of saving oil, and there no way we can drill our way to energy security," he said.

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http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/01/news/economy/energy_chamber_of_commerce/