Former GOP aides form new energy group

Former Republican staffers, not long ago in the thick of energy policy discussions on Capitol Hill, hope to have a bigger impact on the perennial debate over energy production and environmental protection from the outside.

Ex-House Resource Committee aides Brian Kennedy, Lisa Wallace, Dan Kish and Rob Gordon launched Responsible Resources this week with an ad campaign critical of efforts to raise taxes on energy companies.

{mosads}“The issue du jour right now is energy. But most people and policymakers don’t know much about the subject,” said Kennedy, who left the Hill as a spokesman to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

“We felt there was a need to educate people on these issues.”

House Democratic leaders on Wednesday again pushed through a bill that would raise as much as $18 billion in revenue by repealing a manufacturing tax credit to large, integrated oil companies and other credits targeted at the oil industry.

The money would redirect to fund the continued development of renewable energy resources like wind and solar power.

With oil prices at near-record levels and companies like ExxonMobil recording record profits, Democrats are counting on the bill to put Republicans in the politically unpopular position of having to defend the industry. The bill faces a tough road in the Senate, however. Even if it does survive there, it is expected to prompt a presidential veto.

Nevertheless, a number of companies that rely on renewable energy tax credits urged lawmakers to pass the bill: “The bill would extend federal tax incentives for energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies that have expired or will expire at the end of this year. These incentives must be extended immediately to avoid significant harm to the developing clean energy industries in the United States.”

In its ad, Responsible Resources says, however, that taxes on energy companies are a threat to affordable and reliable energy.

Responsible Resources isn’t a new lobbying group, and while Kennedy would not disclose its budget, he did say it would not take any corporate donations.

Kennedy said Responsible Resources is designed instead to be an educational resource principally for members of Congress and their aides with the ultimate goal of growing large enough to influence the debate beyond the Beltway.

Wallace is a former chief financial officer to the Resources Committee. Gordon, president of the new group, is the founder and president of the National Wilderness Institute, which has challenged the Endangered Species Act.

Kish retired as a senior adviser to the committee after serving as the committee’s chief of staff in the 1990s.

Kennedy, who was a Resources Committee spokesman before moving to Boehner’s office, said the group plans to publish a desk reference on energy resources in the United States.

He said basic facts like how much energy is needed to power the country in the future and how much of that energy could be produced domestically are often missing from the debate.

For example, Kennedy said there are more than 2 trillion barrels of oil shale in the United States, more than the projected oil reserves in the Middle East.

“There’s very little discussion of these simple facts,” he said.

One main point, according to Kennedy, is that environmental protection depends in part on a healthy economy.

“A clean environment is a luxury that only the wealthiest countries can afford,” he said.