BY KUNLE KALEJAIYE with Agency Report

A group of US chief executives across many different sectors have proposed a plan to boost domestic energy production and limit governmental regulation as a way to stimulate economic growth.

The Business Roundtable, an association of chief executives of prominent US companies, said over-regulation is holding back a new golden age in energy investment and production.

“Driven by private-sector innovation and investment, the United States is poised to regain its status as an energy superpower,” said Chevron chief John Watson. “The dramatic rise in US oil and natural gas production is creating jobs and economic growth across America, but our ability to take full advantage of the historic opportunity in front of us depends upon the right policy framework.”

Current policies governing energy development are “incoherent” and damaging to new investment, the group said in a lengthy explanation of its proposals.

“The federal government has a responsibility to forge a comprehensive, forward-looking energy policy framework that advances the nation’s key interests. Unfortunately, no such policy framework exists,” the group says in a report. “Evolving through decades of ad hoc measures, the nation’s de facto energy policy is an incoherent patchwork of subsidies, mandates and regulations. The result is a policy labyrinth that, on balance, is more likely to inhibit than to enable the innovation and investment needed to sustain a diverse, affordable and efficient energy system.”

A well-defined, comprehensive energy strategy will help stimulate investment and bring the US closer to energy self-sufficiency, “all while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants”, the group said.

Recommendations from the group include increasing access to onshore and offshore federal lands to to explore for oil, natural gas and coal; streamlining permitting and approval processes; relying on states to regulate oil and natural gas activity on non-federal lands; and ensuring that environmental regulations are based on “sound science” and take into consideration the net impact these laws have on energy costs.