Hill Heat

Michael E. Porter, Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard University

With additional comments by:

• Phil Sharp, President, Resources for the Future
• Daniel C. Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy, Yale University
• Chad Holliday, former CEO, DuPont

Twenty years ago, Michael Porter, one of the world’s most influential thinkers on management and competitiveness, posited what has since become known as the Porter Hypothesis – the notion that well-designed environmental regulation can spur innovation and improve competitiveness. As current policy debates focus on regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act and concerns about global competitiveness of U.S. industry, Porter’s insights have never been more germane. With these issues in mind, Michael Porter will deliver the annual Hans Landsberg Memorial Lecture at Resources for the Future on January 19, 2011.

Michael Porter is a leading authority on competitive strategy; the competitiveness and economic development of nations, states, and regions; and the application of competitive principles to social problems such as health care, the environment, and corporate responsibility. Porter is generally recognized as the father of the modern strategy field, and has been identified in a variety of rankings and surveys as the world’s most influential thinker on management and competitiveness. He is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor, based at Harvard Business School. A University professorship is the highest professional recognition that can be awarded to a Harvard faculty member. In 2001, Harvard Business School and Harvard University jointly created the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, dedicated to furthering Professor Porter’s work. He is the author of 18 books and over 125 articles.

To RSVP for this event, please send an email with your contact details to [email protected].

RFF First Floor Conference Center
Resources for the Future
1616 P Street NW, Washington, DC 20036

Speaker

• Michael R. Bromwich, Director, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement

CSIS B1 Conference Center
1800 K Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006

The CSIS Energy and National Security Program invites you to a discussion with Michael R. Bromwich, Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE). Mr. Bromwich will discuss the bureau’s continuing effort to provide responsible stewardship of U.S. offshore oil and natural gas development. Frank A. Verrastro, Senior Vice President and Director of the Energy and National Security Program at CSIS will moderate.

On June 21, 2010 Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar swore-in former Justice Department Inspector General Michael R. Bromwich as Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement to lead reforms that will strengthen oversight and regulation of offshore oil and gas development. Mr. Bromwich is overseeing the fundamental restructuring of the former Minerals Management Service, which was responsible for overseeing oil and gas development on the Outer Continental Shelf.

In response to the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig and the resulting oil spill, CSIS developed the “Impacts of the Gulf Oil Spill Series.” The project is designed to inform the ongoing public debate by examining the complex interconnections between exploration, risk, regulatory environments, and economic consequences.

This session will be on the record. Registration is required. Please register no later than close of business on Wednesday, January 12th.

Please send your confirmation to [email protected].

8:00 Registration

8:30 Welcome/Opening Comments U.S. EPA Office of Air And Radiation Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy

9:20 Subcommittee Report Outs Economic Incentives and Regulatory Innovation Permits/NSR/Toxics

10:00 “OAR update on Environmental Justice related Activities” Panel Discussion

BREAK

11:15 “Meet the Members” (Two new members will discuss Air Quality Issues related to their work) A Carrier’s Perspective -Dr. Lee Kindberg, Maersk Tribal Air Quality -Joy Wiecks

12:40-1:45 LUNCH

1:45 – 2:30 Mobile Sources Technical Review Subcommittee Move Model Report

2:30- 3:00 CAAAC Operation/Future Topics

3:00 – 3:15 Public Comments

3:15– 3:30 Next Meeting/Close Pat Childers

Crowne Plaza National Airport
1489 Jefferson Davis Highway
Arlington, VA 22202

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) – News conference The Energy Information Administration (EIA) holds a news conference to present a projection of U.S. energy supply, demand and prices to 2035 with the early release of the reference case projection from the “Annual Energy Outlook 2011.”

Speaker

• EIA Administrator Richard Newell

The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Nitze Building, 1740 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Kenney Auditorium, Washington, D.C.

CONTACT: Felisa Neuringer Klubes, 202-663-5626, [email protected]; or Jonathan Cogan, 202-586-8719, [email protected]

r. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy, will talk about accelerating innovation to help meet our energy and climate goals at a National Press Club luncheon on Monday, November 29.

As United States Secretary of Energy, Chu, is charged with helping implement President Obama’s agenda to invest in clean and renewable energy, end the nation’s addiction to foreign oil and address the global climate crisis.

Steven Chu will say that the clean energy successes of China and other countries represent a “Sputnik Moment” for the United States that requires the nation to focus its attention on clean-tech innovation.

The energy secretary will call for the nation to ramp up efforts to develop and deploy the next generation of energy alternatives to ensure the country is able to compete for what he sees as the jobs of the future. Chu is also expected to use the opportunity to tout several of his agency’s ongoing research efforts, including a stimulus-funded project to develop a cost-competitive plug-in car battery with a single-charge range of 500 miles or more.

Chu was co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997.

Prior to his appointment, Chu was director of DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at the University of California. Previously, he held positions at Stanford University and AT&T Bell Laboratories.

The National Press Club luncheon will begin promptly at 12:30 p.m. and Chu’s remarks will begin at 1:00, followed by a question-and-answer session.

The National Press Club 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor

“Report to the President on Accelerating the Pace of Change in Energy Technologies Through an Integrated Federal Energy Policy” addresses one of the greatest challenges facing the United States: how to transform the Nation’s energy system within one to two decades through leadership in energy technology innovation—a challenge with great implications for economic competitiveness, environmental stewardship, and national security.

Speakers

• John P. Holdren – PCAST Co-chair, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
• Ernest Moniz and Maxine Savitz, PCAST members and Co-chairs of the PCAST Energy Technology Innovation System Working Group
• Robert Simon, Staff Director of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
• David Goldston, Director of Government Affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council and former Chief of Staff for the House Committee on Science

Auditorium of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1200 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, DC

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is engaged in a series of rule-making proceedings of extraordinary scope and ambition—going well beyond its efforts to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. All major EPA decisions are contentious, but the current flurry of regulatory initiatives raises unusually serious issues of costs and benefits, feasibility, methodology, and agency discretion. This event will begin with a presentation on air-quality trends followed by panel presentations and discussions on current rule-making proceedings and underlying issues of science, economics, and risk assessment.

Agenda

8:15 a.m.

Registration and Breakfast

8:30

Introduction:

• CHRISTOPHER DEMUTH, AEI

8:40

Presentation: Trends in Air Quality—1970, Today, and Tomorrow

• STEVEN F. HAYWARD, AEI

9:00

Panel I: EPA’s Rule-Making Surge

Panelists:

• PAUL R. NOE, American Forest & Paper Association “The Challenge of Boiler MACT and the Cumulative Air Regulatory Burden”
• ARTHUR FRAAS, Resources for the Future “Banking on Permits: A Risky Business”
• JEFFREY R. HOLMSTEAD, Bracewell & Giuliani “The Clean Air Act and the Rule of Law”

Moderator: *KENNETH P. GREEN, AEI

10:30

Break

10:40

Panel II: Science and Economics in EPA Rule-Making

Panelists:

• RICHARD A. BECKER, American Chemistry Council “The Blurred Lines between Science and Policy”
• RICHARD B. BELZER, Regulatory Checkbook and Neutral Source “Empirical Analysis of EPA Compliance with the Information Quality Act”
• JANE LUXTON, Pepper Hamilton LLP “Polarization on Science Issues in EPA Risk Assessment”
• BRIAN F. MANNIX, Buckland Mill Associates “Whose Telescope is Defective? The Role of Discount-Rate Arbitrage in Energy and Climate Policy”

Moderator:

• SUSAN E. DUDLEY, The George Washington University

Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036

From the Wonk Room.

Democrats recently elected to the U.S. Senate have pressed their colleagues to ambitiously address climate and energy reform, and are frustrated by the lack of action. In a series of interviews with the Wonk Room at Netroots Nation, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) described the challenges of confronting climate pollution in the sclerotic legislative body, brought to a practical standstill by minority obstruction. They each discussed how the “new class” of 22 Democratic senators elected in the 2006 and 2008 waves (with independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont) have pressed for greater “political clarity” on climate by “rattling all the cages” in the Senate, alongside senior leaders such as Sen. John Kerry (D-MA).

Questioned by the Wonk Room why Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) shied away from introducing a comprehensive climate bill for full Senate consideration as energy crises pile up during the hottest summer ever recorded, the senators noted the ability of Republicans to thwart the will of the majority through the abuse of parliamentary procedures. They recognized Reid’s decision to try for quick action with a limited package in what little time is left during this Congress. However, they relished the chance to debate the promise of a green economy before the November elections, seeing the issue as a political winner:

CARDIN: I think we need political clarity. I wasn’t so concerned about having a vote before August. But we needed the clarity of the bill.

FRANKEN: If you want to rev up people, and say Democrats believe in this – one of the gaps they’re talking about is the enthusiasm gap. So maybe, politically, that is the right way to go. I think that Harry tends to want to get half a loaf or a third of a loaf rather than no loaf at all. This bill could be considered a first step. A lot of that is strategic, in terms of positioning yourself for the election. I was sort of of the school that we should go for pricing carbon, and if we lose, we lose. But that’s not what we did.

UDALL: Our two classes – the class of 2006 and the class of 2008 – I think have a real passion for all of the things you talked about and a desire to do something. We’re rattling all the cages in the committees we’re on, doing the things that we can do. But there is kind of an institutional thing going on there that slows everything down. There’s no doubt about that.

MERKLEY: This generational factor is why, if we can create a course that at least puts us on the right track for the next six to eight years, we will have with each subsequent election more and more folks coming in—based on what I hear at the university level, and graduate school level, and based on the difference between our class and the several classes ahead of us – there is just a growing commitment and passion to fighting this fight on climate and energy.

Watch Udall, Merkley, and Franken discuss their efforts to bring new passion to the climate and energy fight:

The Democrats described by Sen. Cardin as the “new class” overwhelmingly support strong green economy legislation, unlike the older generation peppered with climate peacocks. In fact, according to Politico, every one of the 12 Democrats elected in 2008 would vote for cloture on comprehensive climate and energy reform. Of the ten Democrats elected in 2006, only Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) make polluter-friendly arguments against clean energy reform.

“This is going to be a generational battle,” Merkley explained. “We’re going to have keep working and pushing because even our most optimistic bill has fairly weak goals for 2020. We’re going to have to be a lot more aggressive between 2020 and 2050 if we’re going to address carbon dioxide.”

“We can’t give up,” Cardin said during his interview, “because the stakes are too high for our country.”

After today’s weekly Senate Democratic luncheon caucus, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told reporters he plans to initiate debate on sweeping clean energy legislation the week of July 26. Politico’s Darren Samuelsohn reports:

Reid confirmed that the bill will have four sections: an oil spill response; a clean energy and job creation title; a section that deals reduction in energy consumption; and a broad proposal coming out of the Finance Committee that deals with the electric utility industry.

When asked if the legislation will include a cap on greenhouse gases, Reid said only he will “work on pollution.” Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NV) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) are both working on proposals for a climate regime that would be limited to the utility sector. Reid “said he was meeting with Carol Browner, Obama’s top energy and climate adviser, as well as Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Kerry was planning to meet with environmental groups and former Rep. Glenn English (D-Okla), now the CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperatives Association.”

Agriculture will be one of the industries most affected by climate change. Changing rainfall patterns and intensities, air temperatures, and cropping seasons will require the development of new, adapted agricultural systems. On June 16th, experts on climate modeling, cropping systems, crop breeding, and agriculture and natural resource economics will present information about how agriculture can adapt to a changing climate.

RSVP

Speakers

• Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist; NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
• Dr. Cesar Izaurralde, Laboratory Fellow; Joint Global Change Research Institute
• Dr. Paul Gepts, Professor of Agronomy and Geneticist; U.C. Davis
• Dr. Gerald Nelson, Senior Research Fellow; International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society of Agronomy, Council on Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America.

For questions or to RSVP please contact Phillip Chalker at [email protected] or 202-326-6789.

Speaker Biographies

Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig is a Senior Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies where she heads the Climate Impacts Group. She has organized and led large-scale interdisciplinary regional, national, and international studies of climate change impacts and adaptation. She is a co-chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change and co-led the Metropolitan East Coast Regional Assessment of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. She was a Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report observed changes chapter, and served on the IPCC Task Group on Data and Scenarios for Impact and Climate Assessment. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she joins impact models with climate models to predict future outcomes of both land-based and urban systems under altered climate conditions. She is a Professor at Barnard College and a Senior Research Scientist at the Columbia Earth Institute.

Dr. Cesar Izaurralde is a laboratory fellow at the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI), a collaboration of the University of Maryland with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). He is also an adjunct professor in the departments of Geography and the Natural Resource Sciences and Landscape Architecture. Dr. Izaurralde is a soil scientist with more than 30 years of research experience in agronomy, soil science, and ecosystem modeling. His current research focuses in the areas of modeling the impacts of climate change and variability on terrestrial ecosystems and water resources and carbon sequestration in and greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural soils. Before joining PNNL in 1997, Dr. Izaurralde served as Chair of Resource Conservation in the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta, Canada. In his native Argentina, he studied at and later joined the Facultad de Ciencias Agropecuarias at Universidad Nacional de Cardoba. Dr. Izaurralde is Fulbright Fellow and a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy.

Dr. Paul Gepts is professor of agronomy in the Department of Agronomy and Range Science at the University of California, Davis. His research and teaching program focuses on the evolution of plants under domestication and relies on a combination of genetic and genomic analyses, coupled with field work in centers of crop domestication, principally Latin America and Africa. Recent research conducted in Mexico has emphasized gene flow between wild and domesticated Phaseolus beans. He has taught courses on crop germplasm in Argentina and Italy, is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society of Agronomy, has published some 70 research papers and 40 review papers or book chapters, and has edited one book. Dr. Gepts was a member of an Ecological Society of America (ESA) task force that wrote an ESA position paper, Genetically Engineered Organisms and the Environment: Current Status and Recommendations. He co-authored a background chapter assessing the effects of transgenic maize on maize diversity in Mexico for the NAFTA Commission on Environmental Cooperation.

Dr. Gerald (Jerry) Nelson is a senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). He is an agricultural economist with over 30 years of professional and research experience in the areas of agriculture, policy analysis, land use and climate change. As co-leader of IFPRI’s global change program, he is responsible for developing IFPRI’s research in climate change modeling and spatially explicit assessments of potential adaptation and mitigation programs and policies. His previous professional activities includes leading the drivers of ecosystem services efforts of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, undertaking research that combines biophysical and socioeconomic data in quantitative, spatially-explicit modeling of the determinants of land use change, and understanding the effects of agricultural, trade and macroeconomic policies on agriculture and land use. Before joining IFPRI, Dr. Nelson was a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1985-2008) and an Agricultural Development Council specialist at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños. He received his PhD from Stanford University in 1982.