The Energy Future Coalition is a nonpartisan public policy initiative that seeks to speed the transition to a new energy economy. The Coalition brings together business, labor, and environmental groups to identify new directions in energy policy with broad political support.
Andy Karsner, CEO and Founder, Manifest Energy, LLC; Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy under President George W. Bush
Thomas E. Lovejoy, Biodiversity Chair, The H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment; Former Chief Scientist and Counselor, Smithsonian Institution
In late 2001, with the support of the Turner Foundation and Better World Fund, the Energy Future Coalition held exploratory meetings to discuss the inadequacies in U.S. energy policy. These meetings were focused on addressing our dependence on foreign oil and the associated risk to our economy and national security, the neglected threat of climate change, and the need to bring electricity and modern fuels to the two billion people who lack them.
A consensus emerged on the need for change, and on the opportunity to present a new vision that linked security, environment, and economics for a more sustainable future. Over the next six months, more than 150 individuals from business, labor, government, academia, and the NGO community came together to create a compelling new vision of what the energy economy could become, and to identify policy changes that would spark a revolution in energy technology.
The Coalition focused on practical political coalition building, aimed at breaking the gridlock along partisan lines that had previously prevented substantive advances in energy policy. The Coalition created six Working Groups of diverse participants that participated in a nine-month effort to identify a new path forward. These working groups presented recommendations in the areas of transportation, bioenergy and agriculture, the future of coal, end-use efficiency, the smart grid, and innovative financing for international energy development.
Elements of the Coalition's recommendations were included in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005).
Building on the Coalition's Bioenergy and Agriculture Working Group, a group of agriculture and forestry leaders developed the 25x'25 vision, which states that America should produce 25% of its energy from renewable resources by 2025. In the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 Congress endorsed 25x'25 as a goal for the nation.[citation needed]
