April 23 -- The Council of Economic Advisers has released a white paper, "Innovation, Investment, and Inclusion: Accelerating the Energy Transition and Creating Good Jobs." This report is divided into three sections. The first section lays out the innovation challenge, and how the United States is falling behind and what the implications are for investment and jobs. The second section identifies the barriers that inhibit private actors alone from sufficiently investing in clean energy innovation, and thus why Federal policy and public-private partnerships are crucial. And the third section proposes policy responses to foster clean energy innovation and create good jobs.
Specifically, the Federal Government should accelerate energy innovation through policies that:
• Support technological progress, including R&D for, demonstration of, and the deployment of clean energy. To be attentive to distributional concerns, this policy agenda needs to engage stakeholders throughout each stage of the process to shape policy interventions.
• Invest in the supportive infrastructure that energy technologies require to thrive. This should include both enhancements to existing infrastructure and the development of new infrastructure that is critical for the growth of clean energy technologies.
• Develop targeted regulations that enable markets to reflect the damages from emissions while providing a more certain regulatory environment to investors.
• Support the development of good jobs in the energy sector and other industries affected by the transition to clean energy, with the goal of ensuring that economic gains are spread across the United States. This includes the right to join a union and robust labor standards, as well as place-based policies that help communities invest in economic development and revitalization strategies.
Paper available at
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Innovation-Investment-and-Inclusion-CEA-April-23-2021-1.pdf
