Business Roundtable Ready to Work with President and Congress to Address Energy Crisis

“America’s leading CEOs consider recent increases in energy prices to be a serious threat to our nation’s economic growth. Today, Business Roundtable sent a letter to Congress outlining our recommendations to address the energy crisis.

“Business Roundtable members call on the president and Congress to work toward bipartisan, long-term solutions that develop all available energy sources. We support the administration’s decision to lift the executive ban on oil exploration in the outer continental shelf (OCS), and we now look to Congress to do the same.

“Additionally, we must improve energy efficiency, expand our use of renewable energy and achieve alignment between supply and demand to help lower costs and provide long-term relief for America’s citizens, communities and companies.

“We stand ready to work with Congress and the administration to address our nation’s energy challenges in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner,” said Mike Morris, chairman, president and CEO of American Electric Power, Inc. and chairman of Business Roundtable’s Sustainable Growth Initiative.

To view the full text of Business Roundtable’s letter to Congress, please click here or visit www.businessroundtable.org/pdf/2008_09_04_Morris_Congress_OCS.pdf

For more information on Business Roundtable’s position, please click here or visit www.businessroundtable.org/pdf/Energy/Business_Roundtable_Energy_Repor t_06062007.pdf to view its energy report, More Diverse, More Domestic, More Efficient. (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser’s address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

Business Roundtable (www.businessroundtable.org) is an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies with $4.5 trillion in annual revenues and nearly 10 million employees. Member companies comprise nearly a third of the total value of the U.S. stock markets and represent over 40 percent of all corporate income taxes paid to the federal government. Collectively, they returned $114 billion in dividends to shareholders and the economy in 2006.