Iain Murray’s Testimony at the Legislative Hearing on the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act

Full Testimony Available in PDF

Chairman Boxer, Ranking Member Inhofe, thank you for the opportunity to testify to this committee on the subject of S.1733, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.

My name is Iain Murray. I am Vice-President for Strategy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-economy, non-profit public policy group that has for twenty-five years opposed government interference in the workings of energy markets. I hold the Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from the University of Oxford, the Master in Business Administration degree from the University of London and the Diploma of Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. I have been examining public policy options relating to the environment for almost twenty years, having advised British ministers on the role of public transportation in London in the early nineties and having written on global warming since my immigration to the United States in 1998. Having worked within the British government and alongside European Union colleagues I bring personal experience of how other nations approach such policy problems.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute opposes passage of S.1733, in part precisely because it replicates policies that have been tried and failed by other nations and because it does not recognize that the path of emissions reduction is rightly unacceptable to developing nations, which will mean the United States will be placed at a serious economic disadvantage.

This testimony will first examine policies adopted by the EU and its member countries and will conclude that they are ineffective at best, detrimental to their citizens at worst, before examining the position of the developing world, concentrating on their own public statements and the reality of what emissions reduction means for them and their economies.