Sec. 2. Findings; purpose; statement of policy
511 words·~2 min read·
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Congress finds the following: Energy independence and security are critical for a country to maintain its sovereignty and independence. The International Energy Agency (“IEA”) defines energy security as the uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price. The IEA defines long-term energy security as primarily dealing with timely investments to supply energy in line with economic developments and environmental needs. The IEA defines short-term energy security as focusing on the ability of a country’s energy system to react promptly to sudden changes in the supply-demand balance.
The IEA found in February 2022 that Russia’s unlawful invasion of Ukraine poses serious implications for international energy security. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body that provides regular assessments on climate change, issued its sixth report in February 2022, and found that “human-induced climate change, including more frequent and intense extreme events, has caused widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people, beyond natural climate variability”.
The IPCC notes that to avoid mounting loss of life, biodiversity, and infrastructure, we must have ambitious, accelerated action to adapt to climate change, while also making rapid, deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2020 report found that— widespread drought across Latin America and the Caribbean has had significant impact on inland shipping routes, crop yields, and food production, and consequently led to worsening food insecurity; extreme weather events affected more than 8 million people across Central America, exacerbating food insecurity in countries already crippled by economic shocks, COVID–19 impacts, and conflict; and sea-level rise poses a major risk to low-lying coastal zones in the Latin America and the Caribbean.
Rising commodity and energy prices, as well as other global economic shocks such as those caused by natural disasters, pandemics, and conflict, pose a serious food security risk that may lead to social unrest and instability in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is the sense of Congress that the United States has economic and national security interests in assisting Latin America and the Caribbean to achieve energy security. It is the policy of the United States— to advance United States foreign policy and development goals by helping Latin America and the Caribbean meet its short-term energy needs; to promote the energy security of Latin America and the Caribbean by encouraging the development of accessible, transparent, and competitive energy markets that provide diversified sources, types, and routes of energy, prioritizing renewable energy practices that address challenges posed by climate change; to encourage United States public and private sector investment in Latin American and Caribbean energy infrastructure projects to bridge the gap between energy security requirements and commercial demand in a way that is consistent with the region’s absorptive capacity, and that recognizes the importance of building and widening the absorptive capacity of the region; and to help facilitate the export of United States energy resources, technology, and expertise to global markets in a way that benefits the energy security of Latin America and the Caribbean.