November 10, 2008 -

The "first 100 days" of any new administration marks a period where they will try to work with Congress to pass major policy priorities.

Various energy policy experts predicted the week ended November 7 that in Obama's first 100 days, he would include energy as part of a major economic stimulus package with meaningful but likely non-controversial initiatives.

Mark Menezes, partner at the law firm Hunton & Williams and a former senior House aide, said that Obama would be wise to focus immediately on loan guarantees, grants, manufacture-based incentives, and research into clean-coal development.

He suggested that passing long-term tax credits for renewable power would be wise since it, and other initiatives, already have a legislative track record.

"You do what you can do and you stick to tried and true things," he said. "A lot of the work has been done on these issues already."

Menezes served as the chief counsel for Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee from 2003-2006.

He said that Obama will be constrained by other major issues like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, health care, and, of course, the economy.

This will lead him to probably postpone more sweeping initiatives like the RES or the carbon cap until later in the year.

However, Obama could send signal to the American people that he will get to these issues by making it clear that reducing emissions is a top-tier priority. "He could send a message to the American people," Menezes said.

Lexi Shultz, deputy director of the climate program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, suggested that Obama could issue an executive order immediately saying that energy use and environmental issues like climate change should be considered in every decision his administration makes.

"The comprehensive vision has to be out there in order for anything to get done," she said.

She pointed to the December 2009 United Nations climate meeting in Copenhagen as a key moment in Obama's first term.

At that meeting, representatives of the world's government will determine a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

Shultz said that it was premature to expect a US cap-and-trade in place by then but the groundwork for a clean energy platform had to be in place.

"There has to be significant momentum leading up to Copenhagen. The world is now looking to the US for leadership," she said. "It's putting a certain amount of pressure on the process and his transition team is not ignorant of that."

Obama could immediately use the Clean Air Act to at least partially deal with climate change, she said.

He could issue an "endangerment finding" which states that climate change harms human health or welfare, and begin a rulemaking process.

He could also start the rulemaking to grant a Clean Air Act waiver to California to reduce emissions from new automobiles, something President Bush as refused to do.

While the rulemaking would take time, the ability to make an immediate impact is there, Shultz said.

However, energy analysts at financial services company Raymond James said Obama's election and his party's gains in Congress will have little if any impact on energy industries over the next year.

The company said that the new administration's preoccupation with the global financial crisis and difficulty of enacting major new energy legislation will keep markets from shifting significantly.

"With this in mind, we don't see the Democrats' victory in the 2008 US election as a game-changing event for the US oil and gas markets," Raymond James said. "Even the centerpiece of Obama's energy platform - binding carbon emissions caps - is not something that will likely impact the fundamentals of the oil and gas industry, or the coal industry, anytime soon."

Analysts at the US Chamber of Commerce urged Obama to come through on his pledge to enact comprehensive energy policy including provisions to help offshore drilling and fossil energy. "

Without comprehensive energy policy, you have a glass ceiling that prevents the economy from reaching its most efficient level," said Christopher Guith, vice president of the chamber's Institute for 21st Century Energy.