Hill Heat

• Dr. Peter R. Orszag
• Robert L. Nabors II

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and MissionPoint Capital Partners invite you to a lunch briefing and demonstration discussing smart grid technology, what it is, how it can be used, and what key policy issues and market barriers affect its development. The need for a smart grid is increasingly recognized as policymakers at all levels of government look for ways to improve the energy efficiency of producing and using electricity in our homes, businesses, and public institutions. Many believe that a smart grid is a critical foundation for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to a low-carbon economy. A smart grid entails technology applications that will allow an easier integration and higher penetration of renewable energy. It will be essential for accelerating the development and widespread usage of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) and their potential use as storage for the grid. Certainly, PHEVs have been of great interest in the Congress. Smart meters are a key component in the smart grid system that can help utilities balance demand, reduce expensive peak power use and provide a better deal for consumers by allowing them to see and respond to real-time pricing information through in-home displays, smart thermostats and appliances.

Congress may take up provisions related to a smart grid as part of the upcoming economic recovery package. Regardless, these issues will certainly be part of policy discussion as energy and climate legislation is considered in the 111th Congress. This briefing provides an opportunity to hear first-hand from a panel of experts about some of the demonstration projects and deployments underway, and lessons learned from those experiences. It is a chance to see and participate in a “hands-on” demonstration of smart grid applications. The briefing will also discuss existing federal/state barriers and various policy options to address them. Speakers for this event include:

• Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA)
• Dan Abbasi, Senior Director, MissionPoint Capital Partners
• Bill Vogel, Chief Executive Officer, Trilliant Networks
• Dave Mohler, Chief Technology Officer, Duke Energy
• Mike Carlson, Chief Information Officer, Xcel Energy
• Bob Gilligan, Vice President, Transmission and Development, GE Energy
• Michael Butts, Director of Advanced Metering Infrastructure, Baltimore Gas and Electric
• Dan Delurey, Executive Director, Demand Response and Smart Grid Coalition
• Eric Miller, Chief Solutions Officer, Trilliant Networks (Moderator)

This briefing is free and open to the public. Lunch will be served. No RSVP required. For more information, please contact Laura Parsons at [email protected] or (202) 662-1884.

MissionPoint is an investment firm exclusively focused on financing the transition to a low-carbon economy. This is the first in a series of Hill briefings that MissionPoint is co-sponsoring to describe selected pieces of the low-carbon puzzle that it has experience evaluating, backing and strategically accelerating.

Witnesses

• Tom Kilgore, President and CEO, Tennessee Valley Authority

• Stephen A. Smith DVM, Executive Director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
• William “Howie” Rose, Director of Emergency Management Services, Roane County, Tennessee

Representatives from the Center for American Progress, the Energy Security Leadership Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are among the witnesses.

• Thomas Friedman, Pulitzer Prize winning author
• John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB)

A panel of environmental and regulatory experts will discuss the ramifications of these last-minute rulemakings at a hearing next Thursday before Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

The Select Committee recently released a report detailing these frightening possible significant regulatory rule changes by the Bush administration in its final days. The report is entitled “Past is Prologue: For Energy and the Environment, the Bush Administration’s Last 100 Days Could Rival the First 100.” It highlights the major issues the public and the media should look out for in the closing days of an administration that possesses a sharp deregulatory bent.

Witnesses

• Bracken Hendricks, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
• Kevin Book, Senior Analyst and Senior Vice President, Friedman Billings Ramsey & Company, Inc.
• Malcolm Woolf, Director, Maryland Energy Association
• Joe Loper, Vice President of Policy and Research, Alliance to Save Energy
• Steve Hauser, Vice President, GridPoint

• Dr. Cassandra Moseley, Director of the Ecosystem Workforce Program, Institute for Sustainable Environment, University of Oregon
• Mark Limbaugh, Former Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, U.S. Department of the Interior
• Denis Galvin, Former Deputy Director, National Park Service

As Congress considers a multi-billion dollar program of loans to America’s auto industry, many measures of success or failure exist for the industry and the government’s attempts to help the automakers. Chief among those measures of success is how effectively America’s auto industry, and the industry as a whole, is transformed to build cars for the future that reduce our dependence on oil. Will the auto industry meet the fuel economy rules passed by Congress and signed into law nearly a year ago, which could revitalize the industry? Should American taxpayers expect even higher fuel economy performance in return for their investment of additional billions in loans? Do the auto companies’ plans impair their ability to meet the current fuel economy regime?

A panel of auto industry and fuel economy experts will discuss these issues and other energy implications of the automotive industry loan program at a hearing tomorrow before Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Chairman Markey authored the House language that became the current fuel economy standards of at least 35 mile per gallon by 2020.

Today an analysis of the car companies’ own data revealed that General Motors and Ford are now positioned to comply with California’s landmark global warming standards if they are applied nationwide, which could represent a significant increase in fuel economy. According to the analysis of the companies’ data released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the two major automakers are in a position to meet the California global warming tailpipe standards. This analysis is important because some lawmakers in the House and Senate have proposed imposing a condition on the auto bailout that would grant the California waiver or prohibit the automakers from fighting the waiver in court or in state legislatures.

• Joan Claybrook, President, Public Citizen
• Reuben Munger, Chairman and Co-founder, Bright Automotive
• Dr. Peter Morici, Professor of International Business, Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
• Geoff Wardle, Director of Advanced Mobility Research, Art Center College of Design
• Richard Curless, Chief Technical Officer, MAG Industrial Automation Systems

You are invited to a briefing which will discuss a phased-in, revenue-neutral national carbon tax as a policy option for addressing climate change. This briefing is sponsored by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI), the Carbon Tax Center, the Climate Crisis Coalition, Friends Committee on National Legislation and Friends of the Earth.

The briefing will focus on the environmental, economic, economic-efficiency, logistical and political benefits of a national carbon tax, particularly one that is phased-in and revenue-neutral. Many economists have called for enactment of a carbon tax as the simplest, easiest to administer and most transparent approach to carbon pricing, despite the conventional wisdom that a “cap and trade” regime is key to a political consensus.

Speakers for this event include:

• Rep. John B. Larson (D-CT)
• James Hansen, PhD, Director, Goddard Institute of Space Studies, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• James Hoggan, British Columbia Public Affairs Advisor; Chair, David Suzuki Foundation
• Gilbert Metcalf, PhD, Professor of Economics, Tufts University; Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research
• Robert Shapiro, PhD, Co-Founder and Chairman, Sonecon; former U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs
• Brent Blackwelder, President, Friends of the Earth (Moderator)

Issues to be discussed include:

• The need for carbon emissions pricing
• Relative time frames for implementing a carbon tax and a carbon cap and trade system
• Revenue-neutrality vs. targeted investment
• Revenue tax-shift vs. revenue distribution via “dividends”
• Potential implications for cap and trade from the financial crisis
• Lessons from Canada’s recent national election which turned, in part, on a carbon tax proposal, and from British Columbia’s carbon tax which took effect in July 2008

This briefing is free and open to the public. No RSVP required. For more information, please contact James Handley at (202) 546-5692 or [email protected], Charles Komanoff at (212) 260-5237 or [email protected], or Laura Parsons at (202) 662-1884 or [email protected].

Biodiversity in a Rapidly Changing World

Since the biodiversity issue burst on the scene with the 1986 National Forum on Biodiversity, there has been a burgeoning of conservation efforts, organizations, research, education and related activities. Despite many successes, the overall situation is much more precarious today. The driving forces of increased human population, consumption, habitat destruction and degradation, contaminants, and invasive species have been joined by dangerous global climate disruption, globalization, poverty, political instability and other rapid environmental and social changes. Paradoxically, the biodiversity issue has largely fallen off the public agenda, pushed in part by the increased attention to climate change.

There is an urgent need for scientists, conservationists and policymakers to re-examine the biodiversity issue. We must both look retrospectively at a quarter-century of “modern” conservation efforts – what has worked well and what hasn’t, but also prospectively at the greater challenges of the next quarter-century. We need to look broadly at the many scientific discoveries and the many issues involving the use, abuse and conservation of biodiversity including cultivated as well as wild species and ecosystems.

The NCSE conference will bring together some 1000 scientists, conservationists and policymakers to develop a strategy to guide a new US Administration and others working to conserve biodiversity around the world. It will develop an approach for biodiversity management and conservation in a 21st century context, including

• Strategies for Biodiversity, Conservation and Sustainable Utilization
• Scientific Needs for Understanding Biodiversity Values, Losses and Consequences
• Expanding Understanding: Information, Education and Communication

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC Metro: Federal Triangle (orange/blue line)