America stands at a critical inflection point.
Unprecedented energy demand. Rapid artificial intelligence deployment. Aging infrastructure. Widening workforce gaps. Intensifying global competition. Together, these forces have created a set of interconnected challenges that no single industry, company, government agency, or trade association can solve alone. The National Association for Energy & Commerce, operating under the public-facing brand Power America Forward™, was founded to meet this moment.
Projected annual U.S. electricity demand growth through 2050, after nearly 15 years of flat demand. Source: EIA, Annual Energy Outlook 2026.
Grade for U.S. energy infrastructure in ASCE's 2025 Report Card, down from C− in 2021, even as the national infrastructure average rose to a C.
Gap between planned U.S. infrastructure investment and what's needed for a state of good repair over the next decade. Source: ASCE, 2025 Report Card.
Why America Needs a New National Platform
Every number above traces back to the same root problem. The grid, the workforce, and the permitting systems built for the twentieth century are being asked to carry a twenty-first-century economy, and no single company, agency, or industry can carry that weight alone.
An advanced manufacturing plant needs grid modernization, a resilient supply chain, a trained workforce, and economic development incentives working in concert. Miss any one piece, and the project stalls, no matter how ready the rest of the pieces are.
Why this reaches beyond the energy sector
A growing number of manufacturers and data center developers now cite power availability, not labor or land, as the top constraint on where they can build in the United States. Source: U.S. Department of Energy and Grid Strategies, 2025.
Communities near new energy and infrastructure projects are often the last to be consulted and the first to bear construction impacts.
Public officials are frequently asked to approve major projects and permits without a shared, trusted source of data to evaluate them against.
NAEC exists not to represent one industry, but to gather leaders across every industry, sector, and community to solve the challenges that define America's economic future.
The scale of the gap
The pressure shows up everywhere at once: on the grid, in the workforce, and in the communities absorbing new projects.
Generation and storage capacity currently waiting in U.S. grid interconnection queues.
Average time for a new energy project to complete the interconnection process.
Additional generation capacity needed nationwide by 2030 to meet forecast demand.
Projected share of U.S. electricity consumed by data centers alone by 2030.
Share of the U.S. utility workforce eligible to retire within the next decade, a gap widened by the specialized retraining new grid and energy technologies require.
Local ordinances and moratoria restricting wind and solar development recorded nationwide, one signal of eroding community trust in large-scale energy projects.
Projected cumulative loss to U.S. GDP by 2039 if the nation's infrastructure investment gap is not closed.
Projected annual loss in disposable income per American household by 2039 tied to unmet infrastructure needs.
We are not a lobby for one industry, and we don't hide who is in the room.
People reasonably want to know who is funding a conversation about energy policy and who benefits from it. Here's the direct answer.
- A trade association representing one industry's commercial interests
- A dark-money advocacy operation that hides its membership or funding
- A vehicle for any single company's regulatory or competitive agenda
- A source of guaranteed government access, contracts, or referrals for members
- A nonprofit business league (501(c)(6)) governed by a public conflict-of-interest policy
- Built on a three-sector model of private industry, public officials, and community leadership, with no single sector able to control the agenda
- A publisher of sourced, cited research available to members and the public discussion alike
- Open to current and former government officials, educators, civic leaders, and industry leaders as equal participants, not guests
Built with every sector that has a stake in the outcome
NAEC's membership and National Leadership Council bring together the private sector, public officials, and community leaders whose decisions shape this challenge, plus the lenders, advisors, and vendors who support them.
Private sector
Energy producers, grid and infrastructure operators, manufacturers, and investors who build and finance the physical system.
Public sector
Governors, mayors, state legislators, members of Congress, and regulators who set the rules the system operates under.
Community sector
Economic development organizations, workforce and education institutions, tribal nations, and civic leaders closest to where projects are built.
Additional voices NAEC brings into the room
Lenders, investors & insurers
Track industry trends and inform underwriting and risk decisions with a data-driven, cross-sector view of the energy and infrastructure landscape shaping their portfolios.
Consultants & vendors
Build trusted relationships with the stakeholders shaping new projects, and deliver more relevant guidance grounded in a wider view of the market than any single client relationship offers.
See what NAEC actually does about this, in plain terms.
The Challenge is the "why." What We Do is the "how," with no vague value propositions.
All statistics on this page are cited to their original public source and updated as new data is released.