Hill Heat

Nominations of:

• Elizabeth A. McGrath to be Deputy Chief Management Officer of the Department of Defense;
• Michael J. McCord to be Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller);
• Sharon E. Burke to be Director of Operations Energy Plans and Programs;
• Solomon B. Watson IV to be General Counsel of the Department of the Army; and
• Katherine G. Hammack to be Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations and Environment.

The nominees will be present.

E&E News

The Senate Armed Services Committee tomorrow will consider President Obama’s nominee to be the first person to fill a position created to rein in the Defense Department’s energy use in combat situations.

As the director of operational energy plans and programs, Sharon Burke would be responsible for working toward better fuel demand management for the services’ ships, tanks, aircraft and vehicles as well as the generators that provide heating, air conditioning and power to bases in Afghanistan and Iraq. If confirmed, Burke will be the top adviser to the secretary of Defense and the deputy secretary of Defense regarding the services’ operational energy plans and programs.

Burke will likely have a smooth confirmation hearing. Ranking member John McCain (R-Ariz.) does not have any concerns with her confirmation, according to a committee aide. And, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) is planning to meet with Burke today to “get a sense of who she is and what she’s about,” according to Inhofe spokesman Jared Young. However, Inhofe does not plan on opposing her confirmation at the hearing tomorrow, Young said.

Burke currently serves as a vice president at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) in Washington, D.C., focusing on ways international demand for natural resources affects climate change, biodiversity and security.

Last summer, while working at CNAS, she testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on how U.S. national security and climate change are linked. Her comments provide insight into what type of actions she would advocate if confirmed to the position and indicate that she would likely take swift and definitive action to reduce the Defense Department’s carbon footprint and incorporate climate change concerns into defense strategies.

“National security capabilities can take decades to build: We need to design the ideas and equipment and recruit and train the personnel to protect and defend the nation 10 to 40 years in the future, and it is clear that climate change will shape our future,” Burke said in her testimony.

Burke stressed that since DOD is the single largest energy consumer in the United States, it could create a “significant demand pull” that could drive the research and response regarding climate change. She also pressed for better education efforts to help the defense community reach consensus on the science of climate change and how it would affect defense operations.

“There is an urgent need to communicate the science [of climate change] in terms of risk management and plausible scenarios; the defense community, after all, has spent billions of dollars building weapons and training personnel to deal with risks and plausible threats in the future,” she said.

The position Burke was nominated for was created in the fiscal 2009 Defense Authorization Act following sharp criticism from the Defense Science Task Board on DOD’s energy management by operational forces. The task board said in 2008 that the lack of sustained senior leadership on this issue is “one of the most significant barriers to changing wasteful practices.” Other nominees

The committee tomorrow also will consider Katherine Hammack to be assistant secretary of the Army for installations and environment.

Hammack currently works for Ernst & Young’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services, where she has helped clients obtain Energy Star or LEED certification for their new construction or existing buildings. Hammack was also a consultant to the White House on the “greening” of the White House and Executive Office Building, leading the group focused on indoor environmental quality issues.

If confirmed, she will supervise the design, construction, operations, maintenance and management of Army installations. She would also be responsible for the Army’s environmental compliance and cleanup progress.

03/23/2010 at 09:30AM

This briefing will explore public perceptions of climate change, scientific understanding, and the current political landscape. Our goal is to identify areas where these three perspectives reinforce each other and where they diverge in order to: 1) better understand the challenges and opportunities policy-makers face, 2) identify remaining needs that, if met, could help society most effectively manage risks, and 3) explore opportunities to improve communication among policy-makers, scientists, and the public.

Speakers:

• Norman J. Ornstein, Ph.D. Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
• Michael Oppenheimer, Ph.D. Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs, Department of Geosciences and Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
• Jon A. Krosnick, Ph.D. Frederic O. Glover Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Communication, Stanford University

Moderator:

• Paul Higgins, Ph.D. Senior Policy Fellow, American Meteorological Society

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Norman Ornstein is a long-time observer of Congress and politics. He writes a weekly column for Roll Call and is an election analyst for CBS News. He serves as codirector of the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project and participates in AEI’s Election Watch series. He also serves as a senior counselor to the Continuity of Government Commission. Mr. Ornstein led a working group of scholars and practitioners that helped shape the law, known as McCain-Feingold, that reformed the campaign financing system. He was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. His many books include The Permanent Campaign and Its Future (AEI Press, 2000); the coauthored The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Oxford University Press, 2006); and, most recently, Vital Statistics on Congress 2008 (Brookings Institution Press, 2008), also coauthored.

Michael Oppenheimer is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is also the Director of the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy (STEP) at the Woodrow Wilson School. He joined the Princeton faculty in 2002 after more than two decades with the Environmental Defense Fund, a non-governmental environmental organization, where he served as chief scientist and manager of the Climate and Air Program. Oppenheimer is a long-time participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, serving most recently as a lead author of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report and is now a coordinating lead author of an upcoming IPCC Special Report covering climate extremes and disasters. He serves on the US National Academies Board on Energy and Environmental Systems. He is also a science advisor to the Environmental Defense Fund. His interests include science and policy of the atmosphere, particularly climate change and its impacts. Much of his research aims to understand the potential for “dangerous” outcomes of increasing levels of greenhouse gases by exploring the effects of global warming on ecosystems such as coral reefs, on the ice sheets and sea level, and on patterns of human migration. Oppenheimer is the author of more than 100 articles published in professional journals and is co-author (with Robert H. Boyle) of a 1990 book, Dead Heat: The Race Against The Greenhouse Effect. He received his Ph.D. in chemical physics from the University of Chicago.

Jon A. Krosnick is Frederic O. Glover Professor in Humanities and Social Sciences and professor of communication, political science, and psychology at Stanford University.

A leading international authority on questionnaire design and survey research methods, Professor Krosnick has taught courses for professionals on survey methods for 25 years around the world and has served as a methodology consultant to government agencies, commercial firms, and academic scholars. His books include “Introduction to Survey Research, Polling, and Data Analysis” and “The Handbook of Questionnaire Design” (forthcoming, Oxford University Press), which reviews 100 years of research on how different ways of asking questions can yield different answers from survey respondents and on how to design questions to measure most accurately. His recent research has focused on how other aspects of survey methodology (e.g., collecting data by interviewing face-to-face vs. by telephone or on paper questionnaires) can be optimized to maximize accuracy.

Dr. Krosnick is also a world-recognized expert on the psychology of attitudes, especially in the area of politics. He is co-principal investigator of the American National Election Study, the nation’s preeminent academic research project exploring voter decision-making and political campaign effects. For 30 years, Dr. Krosnick has studied how the American public’s political attitudes are formed, change, and shape thinking and action. His publication explore the causes of people decisions about whether to vote, for whom to vote, whether to approve of the President’s performance, whether to take action to influence government policy-making on a specific issue, and much more.

Dr. Krosnick’s scholarship has been recognized with the Phillip Brickman Memorial Prize, the Pi Sigma Alpha Award, the Erik Erikson Early Career Award for Excellence and Creativity, a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and membership as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

As an expert witness in court, he has testified evaluating the quality of surveys presented as evidence by opposing counsel and has conducted original survey research to inform courts in cases involving unreimbursed expenses, uncompensated overtime work, exempt/non-exempt misclassification, patent/trademark violation, health effects of accidents, consequences of being misinformed about the results of standardized academic tests, economic valuation of environmental damage, change of venue motions, and other topics.

At Stanford, Dr. Krosnick directs the Political Psychology Research Group (PPRG). PPRG is a cross-disciplinary team of scholars who conduct empirical studies of the psychology of political behavior and studies seeking to optimize research methodology for studying political psychology. The group’s studies employ a wide range of research methods, including surveys, experiments, and content analysis, and the group often conducts collaborative research studies with leading news media organizations, including ABC News, The Associated Press, the Washington Post, and Time Magazine. Support for the group’s work has come from U.S. Government agencies (e.g., the National Science Foundation, the Bureau of Labor Statistics), private foundations (e.g., the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), and Institutes at Stanford (e.g., the Woods Institute for the Environment). Dr. Krosnick also directs the Summer Institute in Political Psychology, an annual event that brings 60 students and professions from around the world to Stanford for intensive training in political psychology theory and methods.

In his spare time, Dr. Krosnick plays drums with a contemporary jazz group called Charged Particles that has released two CD’s internationally and tours across the U.S. and abroad (www.chargedparticles.com).

03/12/2010 at 11:30AM

Nobel prize-winning economists and scientists will talk about a letter that they, other economists and scientists, and clean energy business representatives will deliver to the Senate Thursday, urging lawmakers to require immediate cuts in global warming emissions. The letter was signed by more than 2,000 economists and climate scientists, including eight Nobel laureates, 32 National Academy of Science members, 11 MacArthur “genius award” winners, and three National Medal of Science recipients. The signers point out that the evidence of climate change is incontrovertible and the longer we wait to address it, the more costly the consequences will be. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) will kick off the call with a statement of support and express the need for Senate action on clean energy and climate legislation.

Speakers

• Kevin Knobloch, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) president
• Tom Udall, U.S. senator from New Mexico
• Jim McCarthy, biological oceanography professor at Harvard University, former American Association for the Advancement of Science president, UCS board member, Nobel prize winner for his work with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• Eric Maskin, economics professor at the Institute for Advanced Study; winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work on mechanism design, the theory of how to design institutions for achieving particular social or economic goals
• Alan Robock, meteorology professor at Rutgers, Nobel prize winner for his work with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Call-in number: (866) 871-4318

03/11/2010 at 10:30AM

United Nations, UN Foundation will join with IPCC scientist to provide commentary on the announcement of a IPCC review panel and the state of climate science overall.

Telephone conference call to discuss the consensus behind climate change science and the context of the InterAcademy Council’s review of IPCC processes and procedures.

Speakers

• Chris Field, director, Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology, Stanford University
• Janos Pasztor, director of Secretary-General’s Climate Change Support Team
• Timothy Wirth, president, United Nations Foundation

US: 1-800-351-9742
Int’l: 1-334-323-7224

Code: IPCC2010

03/10/2010 at 02:45PM

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act invested in projects that create clean energy jobs while helping families save money on their energy bills. These investments in renewable energy, efficiency, weatherization and new technology development have established robust American energy industries, such as advanced battery technology to power cars and trucks.

On Wednesday, Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will explore some of the clean energy results from the Recovery Act, and discuss how an American-made clean energy future can continue.

Witnesses

• Lisa Patt-McDaniel, Director, Ohio Department of Development
• Bryan Ashley, Chief Marketing Officer, Suniva Inc.
• Paul Gaynor, Chief Executive Officer, First Wind Holdings LLC
• Mary Ann Wright, Vice President and Managing Director, Business Accelerator Project, Johnson Controls, Inc.
• Brian M. Johnson, Federal Affairs Manager, Americans for Tax Reform & Executive Director, Alliance for Worker Freedom

03/10/2010 at 09:30AM

Witnesses

Panel 1

• Jon Wellinghoff, Chairman, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
• Gary Gensler, Chairman, Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Panel 2 T* Garry Brown, Chairman, New York State Public Service Commission and NARUC Committee on Electricity

• Vince Duane, PJM Interconnection L.L.C.
• Joseph Kelliher, Representing the Edison Electric Institute and The Electric Power Supply Association
• Michael Henderson, Representing the Arkansas rural electric cooperatives

03/09/2010 at 10:00AM

Witness

• Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior

03/09/2010 at 09:30AM

Witness

• Lisa Jackson, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

03/03/2010 at 09:30AM

Witness

• Tom Tidwell, Chief, U.S. Forest Service

02/24/2010 at 10:00AM

02/23/2010 at 10:15AM