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Encouraging U.S. Clean Energy Exports: A Set of Private-Sector Principles

At a time when U.S. consumers are reluctant to open their wallets and the U.S. government is looking to reduce and more effectively leverage public investments, manufacturing and services exports are becoming increasingly important in helping to create and sustain a new generation of high-quality, middle-class jobs in the United States. Global demand, particularly in rapidly-growing markets such as Brazil, China, India and Russia, will be especially critical in expanding America’s clean technology industries and driving U.S. leadership of a 21st Century clean energy economy.
 
We believe that aggressively promoting U.S. exports of clean technologies and environmentally-friendly goods and services should be a top priority for the Administration and Congress, and offer the following principles to help guide action by the U.S. Government:
 
1. Ensure clean technology neutrality. The definition of “clean technology” should be technology neutral in congressional and administrative efforts to encourage clean energy exports. The United States Government should set objective criteria to ensure that efforts to promote clean technology exports are able to maximize U.S. export opportunities and most effectively reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
 
2. Activate U.S. commercial diplomacy. Success of a clean energy exports program depends on active and robust commercial diplomacy. A more strategically deployed Foreign Commercial Service team and an increase in “reverse trade missions” would improve the competitiveness of U.S. businesses abroad. Additionally, high-level US government officials should take on a greater leadership role in promoting American clean energy goods and services abroad. Given the International Trade Administration’s mission to promote U.S. exports, its administration of the Foreign Commercial Service, and the recent leadership role it has assumed implementing President Obama’s National Export Initiative, the Secretary of Commerce should be deeply involved with planning, promoting and administering existing and new clean energy exports programs. In addition, Congress should examine ways to support coordinated federal efforts to advance a comprehensive national clean technology export strategy.
 
3. Require robust monitoring of and reporting on clean technology export promotion programs. In order to measure the impact of a clean energy exports program, the Administration should monitor, evaluate and report to Congress on the export promotion program’s performance. These reports should include data on the resulting U.S. export levels and number of jobs created.
 
4. Further develop flexible clean technology funding mechanisms. The U.S. Export-Import Bank and other trade agencies play a key role in helping American companies capture new export opportunities and create jobs. The Ex-Im Bank should further support its Environmental Exports Program, which provides for financial incentives and fasttracking for clean energy transactions. Ex-Im should be able to more readily access its Tied Aid War Chest to match foreign export credit agencies’ offers of more advantageous financing that do not comply with OECD guidelines. Congress should support the United States Trade and Development Agency’s (USTDA) programs on clean energy, which have historically proven to be quite effective. American companies and workers would also benefit from better coordination and communication across U.S. government agencies to streamline individual financing projects.
 
5. Protect American ideas and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) globally. IPR protection is critical to the competitiveness of U.S. companies, allowing them to create revenue flows that can be reinvested to support further development of innovative solutions to global challenges such as climate change. Implementation and enforcement of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, which is important for creating predictable markets for investment and mechanisms to facilitate technology deployment, should be a focus of U.S. commercial diplomacy. In determining eligibility for U.S. assistance to reduce carbon emissions in developing countries or to support the export of clean energy technologies, the Administration and Congress should require compliance with and enforcement of existing international legal requirements for the protection of intellectual property rights for clean technologies. To the extent that the United States provides clean technology funding to developing countries, Congress should make such funds available for the purposes of strengthening legal systems and protections in order to incentivize innovation and provide a more secure framework for technology-sharing and research collaboration.
 
6. Reduce green trade barriers. The elimination of taxes and tariffs on environmental goods and services would unquestionably promote the development of clean energy projects. The Peterson Institute estimates that an agreement to lower trade barriers to environmental goods would increase global exports by nearly $6 billion. The United States should make the negotiation of an international agreement eliminating barriers to trade in environmental goods and services one of its top trade priorities. The Administration should also report on barriers to clean technologies and environmentally friendly goods and services abroad. Congress and the Administration should not provide climate change assistance to developing countries which maintain prohibitive trade barriers to U.S. clean technologies. The Administration and Congress should also consider ways to reward tariffreductions or already low-tariff barriers.
 
Business Council for Sustainable Energy
Business Roundtable
Coalition of Service Industries
Emergency Committee for American Trade
Information Technology Industry Council
National Association of Manufacturers
National Electrical Manufacturers Association
National Foreign Trade Council
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
United States Council for International Business

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