Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to present a few ideas about energy and the environment.

We start from the premise that North America is blessed with a tremendously diverse array of energy assets. ln addition to the traditional fossil fuels, we are seeing growth in a wide variety of renewables—some of the best hydro assets anywhere, as well as uranium, biofuels, wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal. These represent an important source of economic development for our region but also highly skilled and well-paying jobs, not to mention the opportunity to develop leading-edge technology and expertise that can be exported around the world.

Our three countries already are highly integrated when it comes to energy, with pipelines that deliver oil and gas as well as transmission lines that can bring cleaner forms of electricity across borders. But there is more we can do to promote continental energy security and ensure our citizens enjoy reliable and affordable energy that makes their lives better.

I will highlight just a few of the points in our paper.

Fundamentally, we should be thinking about how to turn our diverse energy assets into a competitive advantage for our firms, not just those that produce the energy but those that rely on energy as a key input.

lt starts with a regular report, as Ambassador Suarez has referenced, on North America's energy outlook, identifying our collective energy strengths and potential weaknesses and the most promising areas for trilateral cooperation. Much of the energy infrastructure that I referred to is aging, and in other cases, it does not connect promising, new energy opportunities to processing facilities or to important and growing markets. We were pleased to see that at their most recent meeting the three energy ministers again emphasized the importance of modern, resilient infrastructure.

An additional focus needs to be on key energy technologies. Our energy ministers for the three countries have recognized this and are looking to strengthen trilateral cooperation on electricity grids, carbon capture and storage, electric vehicles, biofuels, and best practices in the development of unconventional oil and gas. We need a consistent approach to climate change and greenhouse gas regulation. Some of that is already happening through aligning standards on such things as the energy efficiency of vehicles and appliances.

Given the close integration of our three economies, it makes sense to have a consistent approach to progressively lowering the environmental impact of the energy we produce and consume. We can do that in part through taking a consistent approach to pricing carbon. Overall, we need smart policy that keeps our firms profitable and able to invest in lower carbon energy technologies while avoiding potential competitive barriers.

The Canadian energy industry is already adopting a voluntary set of standards on hydraulic fracturing, covering such things as disclosure of chemicals in fracking fluid and standards for wellbore construction. We have suggested an industry-led North American standard on fracking that would demonstrate that it can both be done responsibly and potentially lead to technologies that can be exported. As Ambassador Suarez has referenced, certainly there are tremendous opportunities to use this technology in shale fields in Mexico.

There is an opportunity for energy regulators in the three countries to work more closely together. Here I would note the MOU that was signed last year between the government of Mexico and the Alberta Energy Regulator, as Mexico seeks to build a world-class regulatory regime for its growing energy sector.

Lastly, the three countries can cooperate on skills certification and an overall human resource strategy for the energy industry to ensure we have the people and capacity to realize our energy opportunity. This model could aIso be replicated with respect to continental skills accreditation in other sectors and occupations.

Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

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