The United States lacks a cohesive national renewable energy policy framework choosing to rely on diverse federal, state and local policies, strategies and cooperative frameworks (Byrne, Hughes, Rickerson, and Lado, 2007). Leading global economies such as Spain, France, China, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom have all adopted respective national policy statements on renewable energy defining institutional guidelines and regulatory frameworks for meeting specific RE targets (Jordan-Korte, 2011). According to Krosinsky, a national policy serves to harmonize the production, distribution and access to renewable energy resources hence creating mutual adjustments in the goals, interests and actions of stakeholders within the sector (Krosinsky, 2012). Hence, the United States should adopt a defined federal policy to increase renewable energy usage by streamlining the deployment of renewable energy technologies and increasing efficiency.
Formal Federal government’s campaign to promote increased utilization of renewable energy dates back to early 1960s, however, the first formal legislation on renewable energy was the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (Lehrer, 2010). The National Energy Act sub-clause specifically targeted increased supply and greater use of domestic and renewable energy resources. The closest attempt to have a national policy on renewable energy died in 2011 with the failure of American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The bill, introduced by Henry Waxman, proposed among other things, that 20% of the total electricity production be from renewable sources. The bill also recommended subsidies for renewable energy and related technologies, protection of renewable energy consumers, 17% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and the introduction of a national renewable energy standard (Linscott, 2011). The bill’s failure implies that individual states continue to rely on Renewable Energy standards passed at the state level guided by the Mandatory Green Power Options and the Renewable Portfolio Standards (Linscott, 2011).