Our Energy, Our Future
Planning for the Politics Ahead
While Congress sits gridlocked on just about every matter of public policy, that’s no excuse for inaction on the part of electric cooperatives, NRECA CEO Glenn English told the association’s board.
NRECA CEO Glenn English outlines challenges for co-ops at the winter NRECA Board meeting. (Photo By: Steven Johnson)
In fact, English said, co-ops should concentrate on mobilizing their political strength in the coming months to meet new opportunities that could arise as early as 2013.
“We anticipate at some point, the dam is going to break. We’ve got a lot of needs in this country that are not being dealt with at this point. A lot will happen very, very quickly and we have to be ready to deal with it,” he said Dec. 5 at the NRECA Board’s winter meeting.
The next 15 months will be an extremely active time in laying the groundwork to capitalize on political and regulatory developments, said English, who earlier announced he will retire in March 2013, after the NRECA annual meeting.
He said the outcomes of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections could shake up Washington and open issues that have been stalled or bypassed in recent years.
“We anticipate we’re going to need a very strong grassroots program to be able to step up our political strength over and above what it is today,” he said.
In particular, English said co-ops should be ready if the 2012 elections provide a chance to re-evaluate the progress and goals of the Clean Air Act, which has been rewritten just once in the last 40 years.
The issue is not clean air or environmental protection, he said, but establishment of a “common-sense” approach to dealing with layers of rules and court cases that have increased the cost of electricity and made it more difficult to provide reliable power.
“Regulation on top of regulation, and court decision on top of court decision, have compounded the situation to the point that many times, we have contradictory regulations and court decisions that don’t make any sense,” he said.
English said strengthening the co-op grassroots, particularly through statewide associations, will be a focus of the 2012 Legislative Conference in May.
Though Congress has decided that it will not be in session at that time, English said he sees the conference as an important strategic planning event.
“What we intend to do is to use that date to do the planning and prepare for the implementation of our case about providing the political strength that we’re going to need to perform our responsibilities.”