A new report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy warns of dire financial consequences, including millions of lost jobs, of instituting energy policies already enacted in European Union nations.
The report notes that former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and various individuals and interest groups have cited value in such policies, including higher gasoline prices, greater regulation, and a carbon tax.
The institute’s report focuses on four factors “that conspire to make energy more costly to consume in Europe and much harder to produce relative to the United States.” These are:
- National policies in the EU that make it more difficult to access inexpensive electrical supply and possibly significant amounts of upstream oil and natural gas;
- Greater EU nation subsidies for “otherwise uneconomic” forms of technology;
- Existing EU taxes or fees on carbon output; and
- Significantly greater EU taxes on energy use.
“Taken together, these four factors have held the European economy back and given the United States (and other low-cost energy countries) a major advantage in the global marketplace,” the report says. “In fact, the Energy Institute’s analysis found European electricity, natural gas, and motor fuel, energy prices over the past several years have ranged from between 1.6 to 2.4 times greater than U.S. prices per unit of energy consumed.”
Were such policies put into place in the United States, according to the report, results would include “a $676 billion drag on the U.S. residential sector and a $31 billion hit to the industrial sector on an annual basis, based on 2014 data.” On average, U.S. households would pay $4,800 more for energy annually, and 7.7 million jobs would effectively be lost due to lower demand for labor, the report adds.
The report is the latest in the institute’s Energy Accountability Series.
