Susan Richardson Williams and Cortney Piper of SRW & Associates have formed the Tennessee Business Leaders for a Clean Energy Economy.

The association of state business leaders will "support the transition to a low-carbon clean energy economy in Tennessee and nationally." Their goal is to "empower the Tennessee business community to influence public policy that helps get us there."

The founders' PR expertise is already evident, with a feature story in the News Sentinel's business section on Saturday and a front-page column in yesterday's opinion section.

Cortney Piper's environmental credentials are well established, but remarks by Susan Richardson Williams acknowledging global warming and criticizing coal as an energy source might come as a surprise to some, given that she is a former state Republican party chair and TVA board member.

Clean energy is smart business, so we hope the TN Business Leaders for a Clean Energy Economy will get the state's businesses on board to help guide policy.

With a flagship DOE research lab and the nation's largest utility, East Tennessee should be ground zero for energy technology R&D. Unfortunately, around here coal is king and nuclear power is heir to the throne, so there's a lot of inertia to overcome.

Maybe that will change, though, as rate payers start seeing the environmental costs of coal in their electric bills and they find out how much it costs to build a nuclear plant. Not to mention the prospect of Tennessee becoming America's nuclear waste dumping ground.

Every candidate will be talking about renewable energy "green collar" jobs and the clean energy economy in the upcoming election cycle. But absent any comprehensive, forward-looking national energy policy for the past 30 years or so, that train may have already left the station. The manufacturing will be done in China. The science and engineering will be done in Germany and Japan and India. Europe is way ahead of the U.S. in deployment, and China is the fastest growing market.

We're playing catch up. And we're already facing the possibility of becoming as dependent on foreign energy technology as we are on foreign oil.

At any rate, if Tennessee wants to be a leader in this or any field we'll have to start with an educated work force. Unfortunately, our state legislators are more worried about where you can carry your gun than about educating your kids.