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A Strategy for America’s Energy Future: Illuminating Energy’s Full Costs / Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney, Brookings Institution, Hamilton Project Strategy Paper, May 2011http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2011/05_energy_greenstone_looney.aspxEnergy consumption is critical to economic growth and our quality of  life. America’s energy system, however, is malfunctioning. The status  quo is characterized by a tilted playing field, where our energy choices  are based on the visible costs that appear on utility bills and at the  gas pump. This system masks the social costs arising from those energy  choices, including shorter lives, higher health care expenses, a  changing climate, and weakened national security. As a result, we pay  unnecessarily high costs for energy. New “rules of the road” are needed  to improve our living standards. (© Brookings)In this paper, The Hamilton Project provides four principles for  reforming America’s energy policies. First, a level playing field  requires that the full costs of different energy sources be priced.  Second, basic research, development, and demonstration are essential for  energy innovation, but government funding is required for critical  investments that the private sector does not have the incentives to  undertake. Third, environmental regulations should be designed and  implemented as efficiently as possible. Finally, climate change, as a  problem of global scope, should be addressed on a global scale. (© Brookings)