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Title: Energy strategy: Roadmap to consensus

Abstract

The United States lacks a comprehensive approach to policy-making in the energy realm. Today, as in the past, individual constituency groups tend to focus on their particular aspect of the energy challenge. Many employ a ``decide-announce-defend`` approach to policy-making, setting out to secure a unilateral advantage for themselves. By so doing, they inevitably pit interest against interest. The result is a polarization of constituencies, and shortsighted policies designed to address the issue of the moment. The American Energy Assurance Council (AEAC) is a non-profit organization founded in 1987 for the sole purpose of facilitating progress toward a fair efficient wise, stable, and consensus-based national energy strategy. AEAC does not have a substantive policy agencies. Rather, we are committed to supporting a process whereby the many stakeholders and policy makers concerned with energy-related issues can come together in productive discourse, thereby overcoming ignorance of each other`s positions. The Council seeks to act as a facilitative body, providing a ``safe`` context for inventive and creative thinking. We attempt to build a store of common knowledge, and to build on that store according to mutually agreed-upon groundrules, and employing sophisticated approaches to facilitation and mediation. This report, the National Energy Consensus Experiment (NECE),more » was an ambitious experiment in consensus-building. We learned a great deal from it, both in terms of substance and process, and we are convinced that it holds important lessons for others who may seek to build consensus in the public policy realm.« less

Publication Date:
Research Org.:
American Energy Assurance Council, Denver, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
OSTI Identifier:
10125526
Report Number(s):
DOE/PE/79073-T2
ON: DE92007910
DOE Contract Number:  
FG01-90PE79073
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: Nov 1990
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY AND ECONOMY; 99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE; ENERGY POLICY; DECISION MAKING; INTEREST GROUPS; COOPERATION; TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER; SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS; MANAGEMENT; 290000; 293000; 990100; ENERGY PLANNING AND POLICY; POLICY, LEGISLATION, AND REGULATION

Citation Formats

. Energy strategy: Roadmap to consensus. United States: N. p., 1990. Web. doi:10.2172/10125526.
. Energy strategy: Roadmap to consensus. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/10125526
. 1990. "Energy strategy: Roadmap to consensus". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/10125526. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/10125526.
@article{osti_10125526,
title = {Energy strategy: Roadmap to consensus},
author = {},
abstractNote = {The United States lacks a comprehensive approach to policy-making in the energy realm. Today, as in the past, individual constituency groups tend to focus on their particular aspect of the energy challenge. Many employ a ``decide-announce-defend`` approach to policy-making, setting out to secure a unilateral advantage for themselves. By so doing, they inevitably pit interest against interest. The result is a polarization of constituencies, and shortsighted policies designed to address the issue of the moment. The American Energy Assurance Council (AEAC) is a non-profit organization founded in 1987 for the sole purpose of facilitating progress toward a fair efficient wise, stable, and consensus-based national energy strategy. AEAC does not have a substantive policy agencies. Rather, we are committed to supporting a process whereby the many stakeholders and policy makers concerned with energy-related issues can come together in productive discourse, thereby overcoming ignorance of each other`s positions. The Council seeks to act as a facilitative body, providing a ``safe`` context for inventive and creative thinking. We attempt to build a store of common knowledge, and to build on that store according to mutually agreed-upon groundrules, and employing sophisticated approaches to facilitation and mediation. This report, the National Energy Consensus Experiment (NECE), was an ambitious experiment in consensus-building. We learned a great deal from it, both in terms of substance and process, and we are convinced that it holds important lessons for others who may seek to build consensus in the public policy realm.},
doi = {10.2172/10125526},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/10125526}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 EST 1990},
month = {Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 EST 1990}
}