Sec. 2. Findings; purpose; statement of policy
671 words·~3 min read·
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Congress finds the following: Energy independence and security are critical for a country to maintain its sovereignty, independence, and sustainable economic growth. 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’s Executive Director remarked in February 2023 that Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine had sparked an ongoing global energy crisis with serious implications for international energy security. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body that provides regular assessments on global heating, issued a synthesis report in March 2023, and found that the effects of global temperature changes were “already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe,” which has “led to widespread adverse impacts on food and water security, human health and on economies and society and related losses and damages to nature and people.”.
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 2021 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 millions of 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 Latin America and the Caribbean.
The United Nations states that facilitating more reliable and affordable access to clean electricity helps governments to improve the quality of other basic services, such as education and healthcare. Electricity access also helps diversify and strengthen local economies. Thus, increasing electricity access could reduce the need to migrate to urban areas and other countries. Natural disasters of increased frequency are projected to increase the displacement of people and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that an annual average of more than 20 million people have been forcibly displaced by weather-related sudden onset hazards every year since 2008.
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 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 sustainable 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, competitive, and solvent energy markets and systems that provide diversified sources, types, and routes of energy, as well as by prioritizing clean energy sources that reduce carbon emissions and address the ongoing global rise in temperatures; to encourage United States public and private sector investment in Latin American and Caribbean energy infrastructure projects to bridge the gap between energy security and commercial demand in a way that is consistent with the region’s current absorptive capacity, and that recognizes the importance of building and widening the absorptive capacity of the region; to help facilitate the export of United States energy resources, technology, and expertise to global markets in a way that benefits the comprehensive energy security of Latin America and the Caribbean; and to assist partner countries in developing and strengthening regulatory and investment frameworks that support energy security.