As a relatively new Texan, I've been very impressed with Texas House Representative Mark Strama. He not only works hard to understand his constituents, but is an extremely engaged politician. I've already seen him speak eloquently at three Texas energy events demonstrating a firm grasp of many issues related to energy.
Yesterday I attended the the fourth annualClean Energy Venture Summit (
hashtag #CEVS2010)
where Strama participated in a panel called Policy, Research, Commercialization, and the Entrepreneur. During the session, he discussed why he believes the American consumer has passed a tipping point. Just as Bill Clinton described over dinner during last week's CGI meeting, Strama emphasized there are tremendous possibilities for industry to profit and stressed three policy levers to promote this:
Stimulate the demand for emerging energy sources
Foster innovation with funding
Recruit existing business and use established infrastructure to create incentives
Many people seem to miss that energy policy is not just about the environment. There are enormous emerging economic opportunities and the U.S. can and should be a leader to reap the benefits of the changing global landscape. Will we?
