Office of Energy and Environmental Industries (OEEI)

Who We Are:

The Office of Energy and Environmental Industries (OEEI) advances the competitiveness of U.S. industries by leveraging in-depth sector expertise to identify their most pressing trade challenges and top opportunities and coordinating public-private sector responses. Our responses include supporting immediate export opportunities, setting up broader market development efforts to create demand for U.S. exports and developing whole-of-government initiatives to address systemic constraints on U.S. export competitiveness. Primary areas of coverage include the goods and services associated with the following sectors: renewable energy (biofuel, biomass, geothermal, hydro, solar, wind), smart grid (electricity transmission, distribution and storage), civil nuclear energy, fossil energy (oil, gas, coal), smart grid, transmission and distribution, pollution prevention, air pollution control, water and waste.

What We Do For You:

To carry out this work, we undertake industry analysis, liaise with industry and spearhead both formal industry advisory committees and Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee Working Groups. We prioritize our areas of focus through Top Prospects Analyses, sector-specific, evidence-based analyses that reveal the markets that hold the greatest potential return on investment for U.S. Government export promotion resources. For the first time we are producing, and will soon release public versions of these analyses. OEEI has also launched major whole-of-government export initiatives focused on the civil nuclear, renewable energy and energy efficiency and environmental technologies sectors.

Advisory Committees

OEEI relies strongly on the input of industry advisory committees to guide the formulation of policies and programs to enhance the international competitiveness of U.S. companies. Committee members are senior executives representing a broad cross-section of the respective industry, and are selected to serve two-year terms. These committees, which fall under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, are charged with providing consensus industry advice to the Secretary of Commerce on ways to enhance U.S. industry competitiveness. OEEI maintains four industry advisory committees:

Civil Nuclear Trade Advisory Committee (CINTAC). Established by Commerce in 2010.
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Advisory Committee (RE&EEAC). Established by Commerce in 2010.
Environmental Technologies Trade Advisory Committee (ETTAC). Established by Congress in 1994 under the Jobs Through Trade Expansion Act.
Energy and Energy Services Industry Trade Advisory Committee 6 (ITAC-6). Established in 2001.

Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee (TPCC) Working Groups

OEEI manages the following three TPCC committees and one interagency taskforce to enhance collaboration on issues of industry competitiveness across the interagency framework and develop whole-of-government export promotion strategies:

Civil Nuclear TPCC Working Group
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency TPCC Working Group
Environmental Trade TPCC Working Group (ETWG)

Major Export Promotion Initiatives

OEEI manages three sector specific initiatives designed to bring target industries into a highly collaborative relationship with the Department in the design and implementation of strategies that will enhance the industry's global competitiveness. These initiatives typically produce recommendations for action by the Department or the interagency team.

Civil Nuclear Trade Initiative (CNTI). The CNTI is designed to strengthen the global competitiveness of the U.S. nuclear industry as it endeavors to rebuild its manufacturing base by capturing opportunities abroad. The CNTI identifies the industry's most pressing trade challenges and most promising commercial opportunities and coordinates public and private sector efforts to address these issues. The CNTI involves four areas of work:

An interagency working group (Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee Civil Nuclear Trade Working Group) to coordinate USG policy and activities affecting civil nuclear trade;
A Civil Nuclear Trade Advisory Committee that provides the Secretary of Commerce with consensus industry advice on issues affecting the industry's competitiveness;
Trade policy and promotion activities that include an annual event at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), trade missions to best prospect markets, official USG trade advocacy, and bilateral declarations on nuclear commercial cooperation; and
Development of stakeholder resources (e.g. a web portal, on-line export controls guide (trade.gov/civilnuclear), among others).

Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Export Initiative (RE4I). In December 2010, Secretary Locke launched the RE4I to focus federal resources on meeting the needs of U.S. renewable energy and energy efficiency (RE&EE) companies interested in exporting. The RE4I includes a unique assessment of the current U.S. competitive position in international markets. The Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee's (TPCC) RE&EE Working Group developed the second part of the RE4I-- an action plan containing 23 commitments. Among other items, these included a commitment by U.S. Government agencies to tailor financing products to the specific needs of the renewable energy and energy efficiency sector. The Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency all produced new financing products and programs. Commerce committed to lead two to three trade policy missions annually and to work with selected countries to remove trade barriers that impact renewable energy and energy efficiency exports. Finally, TPCC agencies committed to make their export promotion services related to RE&EE more efficient and effective. ITA also created the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Advisory Committee to advise the Secretary of Commerce and other TPCC agencies on competitiveness issues confronting the industry.

Environmental Technologies Export Initiative. In May 2012, then Commerce Secretary Bryson and EPA Administrator Jackson announced the creation of the U.S. Environmental Export Initiative, developed by OEEI. This Initiative seeks to foster greater interagency collaboration in U.S. government trade and international environmental activities to support the increased worldwide deployment of environmental solutions. It constitutes a significant shift toward merging export promotion, job creation and global environmental stewardship by leveraging Commerce's trade expertise and EPA's regulatory preeminence. The Initiative aims to increase exports by identifying key market opportunities and environmental priorities, providing U.S. environmental firms with additional tools, and coordinating public-private sector responses to enable U.S. firms to compete abroad successfully. The Environmental Technologies Export Initiative contains three main areas of work:

U.S. Environmental Solutions Exporter Portal: The Portal provides a central repository for this type of information and fosters increased collaboration between U.S. government agencies to better support increased U.S. environmental exports.
U.S. Environmental Solutions Toolkit: The Toolkit represents another key Environmental Export Initiative deliverable, developed by the Interagency Environmental Technologies Working Group (ETWG) for use by foreign environmental end-users and regulators, U.S. government officials, and other stakeholders who need to quickly identify U.S. environmental solutions providers relevant to key environmental issues. The Toolkit outlines U.S. approaches to addressing various environmental concerns and lists U.S. companies that have self-identified as capable of providing technologies necessary to implement those approaches.
Environmental Export Market Plans: OEEI has developed Export Market Plans (which are congressionally mandated) for the key foreign environmental markets it has identified through close consultation with the U.S. environmental industry and a rigorous examination of environmental trade flows and foreign environmental policy developments. Since 2015, the Export Market Plans have been published annually as Country Case Studies as part of the “Environmental Technologies Top Markets Report”, available online at trade.gov/topmarkets. Each case study outlines potential market challenges while also detailing opportunities across all environmental media, including for specific air pollution control, water/waste water treatment, and waste management and recycling technologies as well as ongoing U.S. government activities to support U.S. companies interested in pursuing those opportunities.

Web Portals

To facilitate U.S. exporters' navigating the many U.S. Government trade programs and activities, OEEI has also developed three interagency web portals to support our major export promotion initiatives:

www.TRADE.gov

The International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, manages this global trade site to provide access to ITA information on promoting trade and investment, strengthening the competitiveness of U.S. industry, and ensuring fair trade and compliance with trade laws and agreements. External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views or privacy policies contained therein. This site contains PDF documents. A PDF reader is available from Adobe Systems Incorporated.

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