President Trump’s pro-fossil fuel policies should be a “bridge” to cleaner, more advanced energy technologies to meet future energy demand at home and abroad, former military leaders recommended in a new report issued Tuesday.
The CNA Military Advisory Board report, called Advanced Energy and U.S. National Security, wants the Trump administration to see America’s vast oil, natural gas and coal resources as not an end in themselves but as a starting point toward achieving the next generation of energy technologies.
“The U.S. has a choice: Will we be bystanders in the transformation, or do we participate and steer the process to our economic and security advantage?” the dozens of former admirals and generals who contributed to the report asked in its summary.
They say the choice the nation makes is a matter of national security for decades to come.
“Should America embrace and accelerate the use of advanced energy sources, it can open new markets for a wide range of goods and services, promote prosperity in emerging economies, and establish new energy tethers and political influence,” the summary read.
In addition, reducing global pressure on traditional energy supplies, especially crude oil and coal, eases the potential for future conflict, and, “as history shows, the military that first embraces the improvements inherent in a new technology can gain advantage,” the report said.
Therefore, advanced energy is a “national security priority,” the military leaders made clear. The report is meant to be a guide for the Trump administration, Congress, and state and local governments on the national security impact of transitioning to cleaner, more advanced energy systems.
“President Trump’s commitment to ‘promote clean and safe development of our nation’s vast energy resources,’ his acknowledgment that ‘the prudent development of these natural resources is essential to ensuring the nation’s geopolitical security,’ and his recognition that it is ‘in the national interest to ensure that the nation’s electricity is affordable, reliable, safe, secure and clean, and that it can be produced from coal, natural gas, nuclear material, flowing water, and other domestic sources, including renewable sources’ provides opportunity for today’s emerging advanced energy technologies to play a critical role in meeting these goals,” the report stated.
The recent tapping of crude oil and natural gas in shale regions through fracking “can provide a needed bridge to transition to a new advanced energy paradigm,” it read.
“The U.S. should adapt our fossil fuel resources and advanced energy innovation to help fit that bill.” In addition, a U.S. energy policy centered on fossil fuels “should not delay our planning for, development of, and investment in advanced energy systems at home and abroad,” the report said.
“The world needs clean, reliable, accessible and affordable energy, and old energy systems alone will not satisfy the world’s growing demand for energy,” it added.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said Friday that Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement should not be considered disengagement on clean energy development. He said as the president attempts to renegotiate the terms of the deal with the United Nations, the administration will be looking for new opportunities to sell U.S.-developed clean energy technologies.
The report does not discuss the Paris decision, but said the move ahead on advanced energy development will take “vision and strategic investment.”
It warns that China and the European Union are on “the vanguard of manufacturing, deployment and market penetration.”
“Ceding U.S. leadership here has inherent national security risk, including loss of global influence and diplomatic leverage, as well as forgone economic opportunities.”
Critics of Trump’s decision to leave the global climate pact said he is abdicating leadership on clean energy development, including the development of clean coal and carbon capture and storage technologies that coal utilities and mining companies have poured billions of dollars into over the last decade.
