New White House Report Calls for a Modern, Resilient U.S. Energy System

(WASHINGTON, D.C. – April 21, 2015) The Obama Administration released today the first-ever Quadrennial Energy Review (QER). The report proposes policies and investments needed to modernize the U.S. energy system in order to spur economic development, improve energy security, and reduce air pollution. This report focuses on energy transmission, storage, and distribution infrastructure and identifies opportunities for a cleaner, more resilient and sustainable energy future that these systems can deliver, as well as their potential vulnerabilities.

“The idea is to seize the huge opportunity for energy and cost savings now possible due to new energy and information technology that’s changing everything from power plants to the power outlet on your wall. These recommendations and the recent grid modernization steps from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission move us towards an efficient energy system that will hold up in the face of extreme weather, expand customer choice, and smoothly integrate clean energy.

“EDF also applauds the administration for proposing working with states and local utilities to focus on the important issue of reducing methane leaks across the natural gas distribution system. As a recent study led by Washington State University shows, progress has been made in reducing emissions from local distribution systems, but there’s more work to be done – the annual emissions from this system are still comparable to the annual CO2 emissions from 19 coal-fired power plants and represent up to $195 million in lost gas each year.

“While EDF applauds the administration for focusing on modernizing our country’s outmoded transmission, storage, and distribution energy infrastructure in this report, a critical gap remains with regards to U.S. gathering and processing infrastructure – which links natural gas and oil wells to regional pipeline systems. This gap needs to be addressed to have a truly modern energy system.”

• Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund