The Energy Security Pacts Act, a new bipartisan bill introduced this week by Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Pete Ricketts (R-NE), looks to elevate and expand US energy investments in emerging economies.

The bill addresses one of the central problems plaguing US efforts to deliver abundant, more reliable electricity to strategic allies: interagency coordination.

You might roll your eyes at a call for better agency coordination. But it matters (and it’s not a lost cause!). While the United States has multiple agencies and tools to promote energy security in our strategic partners, those agencies and tools don’t work together well enough — or at all. This bill attacks the problem at its core in an effort to increase US investments in global energy infrastructure.

I’ll share two illustrative examples of how the failure to work together is paralyzing progress on global energy security:

• The State Department provides technical assistance to strategic allies like the Philippines to strengthen its power sector, creating ideal conditions for US energy providers to invest. But lack of strategic focus and coordination from the US Export-Import Bank to support follow-on investments would leave these new opportunities to Chinese companies. And China’s influence is already profound: the Philippines houses nine US military bases that all rely on a national grid partially owned by China.
• Or the Millennium Challenge Corporation rehabilitates the electricity grid in Cote d’Ivoire, supporting a growing economy and regional power pool. But the US International Development Finance Corporation isn’t mandated to take advantage of those investments and bring more business, including US firms, into that market.

Global energy security demands US agency collaboration and a robust assistance-to-deal pipeline that does not depend on ad hoc agency relationships.

The Energy Security Pact Act is well set up to tackle these kinds of challenges. The bill requires up-front planning and coordination with a selected strategic partner before operations begin, rather than hoped-for follow-on attention after the United States has begun investing.

Over a 10-year period, an Energy Security Pact would bring US grant funding to a partner country to build public infrastructure and reform the regulatory regime. The pact would then use US private sector expertise and concessional finance to expand and use that reliable electricity to grow industries and create jobs.

This bill, coupled with the DOMINANCE Act introduced by Representatives Young Kim (R-CA) and Ami Bera (D-CA) in January, offers the best chance for transforming strategic allies’ energy sectors.

Now more than ever, energy security is critical for the United States and critical for our strategic partners. In these countries, reliable, abundant energy is necessary to transform economies and create jobs. The Energy Security Pact is a creative, bipartisan, bicameral solution to make that reality happen.