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Alliance to Save Energy
Established in 1977, the Alliance to Save Energy (ASE) is a nonprofit coalition of business, government, environmental, and consumer leaders. The ASE supports energy efficiency as a cost-effective energy resource under existing market conditions and endorses energy-efficiency policies that reduce costs to society and individual consumers, and that limit greenhouse gas emissions and their impact on the global climate. To achieve these results, the ASE undertakes research, educational programs, and policy advocacy; plans and implements energy-efficiency projects; promotes technological innovation and collaboration; and sets up public–private partnerships, both in the United States and in other countries. ASE argues that energy efficiency can be profitable for businesses as well—that is, being green can make money—and has thus campaigned to reach a much larger group than environmentalists usually target. ASE's campaigns have led to the passing of significant legislation affecting American consumers as well as citizens in developing countries.
The alliance's mission is to promote “energy efficiency worldwide to achieve a healthier economy, a cleaner environment, and greater energy security.” Its corporate statement describes the ASE as leading “worldwide energy-efficiency initiatives in research, policy advocacy, education, technology deployment, and communications that impact all sectors of the economy.” Leaders from academia, business, government, and other fields serve on the board of directors.
History
Republican Senator Charles Percy and Democratic Senator, former vice president, and presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey founded the ASE in 1977. In the same year, U.S. President Jimmy Carter also established the Department of Energy. Since its founding, the ASE has been a bipartisan endeavor. It had to face the energy crisis of the late 1970s, when the United States recognized its oil dependency and the economic importance of energy. In those years, the Iranian Revolution generated a second, severe oil crisis worldwide; the first had occurred in 1973 with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil embargo. The second crisis caused the doubling of oil prices. The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, in 1979, exposed the risks of nuclear energy. The ASE started its first major campaign in 1978, mounting a national television public-service advertising campaign that used Gregory Peck to promote energy conservation. The slogan of the campaign was “Don't Blow It America.”
During Ronald Reagan's presidency, characterized by large reductions in federal efficiency activities, the alliance restructured its organization by initiating new research programs and pilot demonstrations that outlined innovative methods to promote energy efficiency in private markets. In the first half of the 1980s, the ASE came to the forefront in national debates on energy efficiency. In 1982, it promoted the adoption of utility demand-side management, designing the first methodology to evaluate efficiency as an energy resource for Arkansas Power and Light. Two years later, the ASE began to explore the use of energy-saving performance contracting, producing workbooks and hosting seminars on innovative, private-sector financing techniques for energy-efficiency projects. The alliance also promoted legislation to allow governors to shift fuel assistance funds into energy-efficiency upgrades in low-income homes. Encouraged by then-alliance chairman Senator John Heinz, this piece of legislation devoted nearly $2.5 billion to energy-efficiency investments.
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