June 11, 2008

WASHINGTON, DC - Governor Allen delivered the following remarks as prepared for delivery at the 19th annual U.S. Energy Efficiency Forum today at The National Press Club in Washington, DC:

It’s a pleasure and honor to be with you all to discuss the pressing, vital issue of Energy and specifically Energy Efficiency at this forum. I thank the U.S. Energy Association and Johnson Controls for sponsoring this 19th Annual Energy Efficiency Forum. Never in the two decades of this Forum has Energy, and therefore practical Energy Efficiency, been an issue that all Americans and the world care about more in operating their businesses and in their every day life.

Energy is the lifeblood of our economy and improved standard of living; whether as an air or ground transportation fuel, as an essential component for manufacturing or farming, as a source of home heating or cooling, or especially electricity. The power outages in Northern Virginia, Maryland and the D.C. area last week remind people of the importance of electricity in our lives – trust me.

I’ve been asked to present Senator John McCain’s Presidential campaign agenda on energy. The affordability, reliability and availability of electricity and energy is absolutely essential for American energy security and economic prosperity. Indeed, a free and prosperous America must be able to defend, feed and fuel itself.

Having worked with him, I know John McCain is a man who acts on his beliefs, which I will share with you concerning energy.

John McCain believes energy security is crucial to our national, economic and environmental security.  John McCain will provide the leadership and make energy security a top national priority: diversify our energy mix, expand energy supply, and use energy more cleanly and efficiently.

John McCain believes market forces, political instability, terrorism and environmental pressures make our dependence on foreign oil a strategic vulnerability.

Indeed, John McCain believes we are one successful attack away from an economic crisis.  Our enemy knows our vulnerability and plans for attacks on oil facilities in the Middle East and other places to harm the American economy.

That is one of his salient motivations in believing that our overdependence on imported oil and energy from unstable governments and particularly from hostile regimes undermines our National Security.

John McCain wants to unleash American creativity, ingenuity and innovation for more affordable, reliable and clean energy.

We have that energy, under our land and off our coasts, right here in America. What’s missing is the political leadership to use this American Energy. John McCain will provide that leadership.

Senator McCain wants to explore for oil and natural gas in our Outer Continental Shelf in States that support it. We need to allow Virginia and other Atlantic coast States to move toward deepwater oil and/or natural gas exploration far off their coasts and share the royalties with the States. According to the Department of the Interior, there are roughly 85 billion unexplored barrels of oil and 420 trillion unutilized cubic feet of natural gas under deep water on our Outer Continental Shelf.

Castro – with Hugo Chavez and the Peoples Republic of China – are exploring 50 miles off the coast of Florida, but the U.S. government prohibits our own gas and oil producers from exploring 50 miles off the coasts of Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia. That doesn’t make sense to many Americans. Sending $500 to $600 billion out of the U.S. every year for imported oil also aggravates most Americans.

We also need to smartly utilize other sources of American energy, like clean coal technology. We are the Saudi Arabia of the world when it comes to coal. The rest of the world is using more U.S. coal for electricity. In fact, South Africa and China are refining coal to liquids for transportation fuels. So should we, rather than using food and feed for fuel. We must develop clean coal technology for our growing electricity demand and in the form of Coal-to-Liquids and Coal-to-Gases.

In addition to clean coal technologies, we also need to get more of our base load electricity from clean, advanced nuclear power. France uses advanced nuclear for more than 80% of its electricity. They reprocess their spent fuel in a much safer, efficient way. If the French can do it, so can Americans. And John McCain has been – and will be – a strong advocate of nuclear power. Senator McCain points to our US Navy aircraft carriers and submarines sailing throughout the world as examples of the ability to safely utilize nuclear power.

And of course our energy portfolio should include a diverse range of alternative energy sources such as nano-tech enhanced solar power and batteries. Plug-in or hybrid vehicles are the most practical achievable personal ground transportation alternative to petroleum based propulsion, with a distribution system for electricity everywhere you see a light bulb.

John McCain does not wish to mandate any particular building standards for energy efficient homes or buildings.  Obviously, any energy efficiency realized in our homes would help to reduce the amount of energy consumed and, therefore, reduced emissions.

However, John McCain wants to create greater demand for the best technologies and practices. As he recently said, “To create greater demand for the best technologies and practices in energy conservation, we will use the purchasing power of the United States government. Our government can hardly expect citizens and private businesses to adopt or invest in low-carbon technologies when it doesn’t always hold itself to the same standard. We need to set a better example in Washington, by consistently applying the best environmental standards to every purchase our government makes.”

America needs to look at ways of being less wasteful, more efficient and smarter in the use of our energy. New government and college buildings should use the most energy efficient innovations in construction and operations. Many new homes don’t use solar or innovations due to the higher cost.

If energy efficient water heaters, solar, geothermal, better insulated walls and windows add 15% to the cost of a home and may take 10 years of savings to break even, then builders won’t risk pricing themselves out of the home market. Home buyers aren’t sure if they will live someplace more than 4 or 5 years so the “life-cycle” cost effectiveness of energy efficiency is not particularly economically relevant to them.

However, government and college buildings will be in use for 50 to 100 years or more. At the University of Virginia, the “new dorms” are 40 years old and the “old dorms” are 50+ years old. On Mr. Jefferson’s original lawn students still live in places that were built in 1819.

Look at our State and federal government buildings, courthouses, and schools. Many are at least 50 years old. So for the government, they can and should rationally look at the “life cycle” costs of operations of their facilities from construction materials to lighting to heating and cooling and water usage.

Government can actually lead the way with innovative energy decisions that will save the taxpayers money by keeping the operational cost of the schools, colleges, hospitals, courthouses, prisons, agency building and many other buildings that otherwise demand a lot of energy less costly. With such demand the cost of the material and equipment will be more affordable. And, there will be an ameliorated demand for energy to heat, cool or illuminate these government facilities.

A great example of government taking the lead on this to use resources more efficiently and, more importantly, save taxpayers money during the long life-cycle of a government building, is the new California EPA building in Sacramento.

The builder invested $500,000 in efficiency upgrades to equipment, operations and employee practices resulting in $610,000 annual savings. This all included highly efficient HVAC and lighting systems, photovoltaic rooftop panels and a plate and frame heat exchanger that reduces on/off cycling of the chiller equipment. The building is 34% more efficient than California’s 1998 energy code and earned an ENERGY STAR rating of 96 out of 100. The building also saves $80,000 a year by eliminating garbage can liners and using reusable cloth bags in centrally located recycling bins. It saves $190,000 in systems calibration, monitoring, commissioning and maintenance for energy performance. It saves $100,000 a year with more efficient after-hours heating and lighting controls. It saves $9,500 with more efficient exterior lighting systems, $95,000 a year with better landscaping and grounds management and saves $19,000 a year with more water-efficient landscaping and restrooms and cooling cycles.

This is an example of innovative, practical, common sense logic for procurement that is good for the taxpayers, our economy and our environment that John McCain will advance for the federal government.

Unlike his opponent, who has proposed raising taxes on U.S. oil, coal and natural gas, which would increase energy costs and increase American dependence on foreign sources of energy, President John McCain will propose a National Energy Strategy that will amount to a declaration of Independence from energy insecurity. Promoting the diversification and conservation of our energy sources will break the dominance of oil in our transportation sector and substantially improve utilization of American resources and creativity for cleaner, reliable and affordable energy for American competitiveness and security.

I’m certain that creative ideas and practical innovations in energy efficiency from participants at this forum can and should be welcomed by the McCain administration. So I’ll stop and answer or listen to your comments, suggestions and questions today.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Sen. McCain, Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.