Candidate Notes on 01-SGA11

01-SGA11 on Sep 9, 2001

• Whereas, our nation is lacking in the infrastructure necessary to drive our growing technology-based economy with reliable, high-quality, affordable energy supplies; deficient in efficiency improvements that enable the balance of supply and demand; and subject to the market volatility of some fuels;
• Whereas, in order to maintain the world’s strongest economy coupled with a clean environment, we need to support and develop policies and technologies that enable a diversity of domestic energy resources to be utilized throughout the region;
• Whereas, the United States’ electricity transmission grid is the most reliable in the world, but the increasing demand for electricity, the expanding competitive electricity market and related regulatory and jurisdictional issues create a challenge to maintaining national reliability of the transmission grid that was designed and constructed to serve local needs rather than to serve a rapidly growing national

wholesale market;

Resolved, that the Southern Governors’ Association urges Congress and the President to provide in any national energy policy:

• adequate funding and incentives for further development of clean and efficient technologies and systems to provide an effective approach to increasing domestic energy supplies, improving the efficiency of energy use and enhancing the environment;
• full funding for the State Energy Program (SEP) to expand development and deployment of technologies appropriate for each state and each region and to develop and maintain energy emergency response mechanisms, exercises and programs in the states and the region;
• consolidated and efficient method for siting of electric transmission lines across multiple jurisdictions while maintaining the states’ primary authority and developed in close consultation with the nation’s governors.

Participating counts on VoteMatch question 18.