Energy

The Austin Chamber recognizes that Texas must invest in clean and cost-effective energy technologies and practices to lower costs, minimize air pollution, reduce water consumption, enhance the health and comfort of its citizens, and maintain a vibrant industrial economy.

The Austin Chamber supports initiatives that provide for improved information dissemination on energy efficiency opportunities, and the alignment of policies to incentivize implementation of energy efficiency projects and innovative energy technologies. The Austin Chamber also supports programs that encourage the creation and expansion of markets for renewable energy technologies with significant job creation potential.

The Austin Chamber recognizes the promotion and expansion of the oil and natural gas industry is critical for statewide economic and employment growth as well as national security.

Specifically, The Chamber:

• Support reasonable approaches to measures that address the traditional permitting process for oil or natural gas drilling that will not affect economic development in the State.
• Support for policies regarding the exploration, production, and transportation of oil or natural gas in Texas that make Texas gas resource development more competitive with other states.
• Strongly supports measures that promote the expanded use of natural gas in Texas, especially for transportation, recognizing that this will lead to lower costs, new investments and the stimulation of new employment opportunities.

National Energy Hubs Initiative

Support fully funding the expansion of the national energy hub program to create new energy hubs as outlined in the President's Strategy for American Innovation in the areas of smart grid & energy storage.

Support the Pecan St. Project

Continue supporting Austin’s innovative Smart Grid pilot program, the Pecan St. Project.

Incentivizing Energy Storage

Support sensible policies and incentives that encourage the research, development, production, and deployment of energy storage devices, recognizing their benefits both to green energy technologies and to the energy grid at-large, and ensure that energy storage is included as an eligible technology in national clean energy policies, goals, standards, and incentives.

PACE Financing

» UPDATE: Congressman Lamar Smith accepted the Chamber’s request for his support of PACE on our behalf and officially became a cosponsor of the bill on July 28, 2011.

The Austin Chamber thanks Congressman Smith for his continued leadership and support. Support The Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Assessment Protection Act of 2011 (HR 2599) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) adoption of underwriting standards that are consistent with the ARRA PACE guidelines issued by DOE in May 2010. These guidelines will provide more stringent regulation of the program to improve the viability and safety of the program for both participants and lenders.

Austin Energy Future Generation Plan

On April 22, 2010, Austin City Council approved an updated resource, generation, and climate protection plan. Also, Austin City Council directed Austin Energy staff to develop and adopt an affordability goal for rates and services for all classes of customers.

The Austin Chamber of Commerce advocated for the following priorities as part of the consideration of the updated generation plan:

• Establish affordability goals and metrics across all ratepayer classes;
• Create a public process that identifies the most cost-effective methods that reduce CO₂;
• Develop an annual plan performance review to track progress compared to initial expectations;
• Identify opportunities to exceed the current goals of conserving 800MW of power; and
• Eliminate rebate caps to provide the most conservation at the lowest cost.