Real Savings, Real Investment: Efficiency Begins at Home

Keynote Address:

  • Representative Ed Perlmutter (D-CO)

Featured Panelists:

  • Marshall Purnell, President, American Institute of Architects
  • Gregory Melanson, Senior Vice President and Regional Community Development Executive, Bank of America
  • Stockton Williams, Senior Vice President & Chief Strategy Officer, Enterprise Community Partners

Moderated by:

  • Sarah Wartell, Executive Vice President for Management, Center for American Progress Action Fund

As economic growth in the U.S. slows, our country’s global warming gas emissions continue to rise. Meanwhile, consumers are being hit hard by the twin burdens of a sagging housing market and rising energy prices at home and at the gas pump. It’s time to invest wisely in protecting family budgets and revitalizing our built environment. With smart policy we can prioritize energy efficiency to ease the woes of consumers, lenders, financial markets, and our environment. Recognizing this opportunity to offer real solutions to pressing problems, Representative Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) plans to introduce legislation giving incentives to lenders and financial institutions to provide lower interest loans and other benefits to consumers who build, buy, or remodel their homes and businesses to improve their energy efficiency. This timely legislation reflects foresight and the considered input of a broad coalition of housing advocates, financial institutions, government leaders, developers, and the environmental community. Please join us to discuss how this critical intersection of policy concerns can respond to the needs of America’s communities and help lift our troubled economy to build a move vibrant, energy efficient, and low-carbon future.

Center for American Progress Action Fund 1333 H St. NW, 10th Floor Washington, DC 20005

RSVP for this event.

Center for American Progress
District of Columbia
04/22/2008 at 12:00PM

The Electric Drive Answer: Transportation Technologies & Policies to End Oil Dependence

The Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA), with support from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, invites you to The Electric Drive Answer: Transportation Technologies & Policies to End Oil Dependence.

During this unique multi-industry panel, EDTA members will detail their latest projects and plans for battery, hybrid, plug-in and fuel cell electric drive vehicles, components and infrastructure. They will also discuss how federal policies can speed the commercialization of clean, efficient electric drive and reduce the role of oil in transportation.

EDTA members from the following companies will participate: Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai Motor Company, Toyota, Southern California Edison, Johnson Controls-Saft Advanced Power Solutions, Electrovaya, EnerDel, Phoenix Motorcars, and Vectrix.

Panelists:

  • Mike Andrew, Director of Government Affairs and External Communications, HEV Battery Systems Power Solutions, Johnson Controls-Saft Advanced Power Solutions
  • Edward B. Cohen, Vice President, Government & Industry Relations, Honda North America
  • Dr. Sankar Das Gupta, CEO, Electrovaya (or another representative)
  • Daniel J. Elliott, CEO, Phoenix Motorcars
  • Charles Gassenheimer, Chairman of the Board, Ener1
  • Nancy Gioia, Director of Sustainable Mobility Technologies and Hybrid Vehicle Programs, Ford Motor Company
  • Charles Ing, Director, Government Affairs, Toyota
  • Andrew J. MacGowan, Executive Chairman, CEO, & President, Vectrix
  • William MacLeod, Senior Manager, Government Affairs, Hyundai Motor Company
  • Dean Taylor, Technical Specialist, Southern California Edison
  • Joseph Trahern, Director Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, General Motors

This event is free and open to everyone. Pre-registration is not required. Please forward this notice. For more information please contact EDTA by visiting www.electricdrive.org or by contacting Jennifer Watts at 202-408-0774×306 or [email protected].

Electric Drive Transportation Association
Environmental and Energy Study Institute
562 Dirksen
04/22/2008 at 09:30AM

Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles Come to DC

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) invites you to view and ride in a plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV) on the Capitol Mall during the Earth Day festivities. Flexible-fuel PHEVs offer a promising opportunity to reduce dependence on imported oil, decrease greenhouse gas and other transportation emissions, revitalize local economies, and lower fuel costs. The single largest contributor to America’s foreign oil dependence is the transportation sector which accounts for two-thirds of US oil consumption. Moreover, the transportation sector is 97 percent dependent on petroleum.

The vehicle, an XH-150, was developed by the Bellevue, Washington-based AFS Trinity Corp. and is a modified 2007 Saturn Vue Greenline SUV that gets up to 150 miles-per-gallon. Its energy storage system combines lithium-ion batteries with ultracapacitors. Adding ultracapacitors allows the vehicle to achieve top speeds and rapid acceleration in electric-only mode equal to a conventional hybrid. For a typical daily commute of 40 miles round trip, the vehicle does not use its internal combustion engine at all. The XH-150 was unveiled in January at Detroit’s North American International Auto Show. Look for the AFS Trinity Truck on the Mall.

Environmental and Energy Study Institute
District of Columbia
04/20/2008 at 12:00PM

Markup of wildfire management and other bills

The House Natural Resources Committee, led by Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-WV), will meet in open markup session to mark up the following bills:

  • H.R. 5541 (Rahall): To provide a supplemental funding source for catastrophic emergency wildland fire suppression activities on Department of the Interior and National Forest System lands, to require the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to develop a cohesive wildland fire management strategy, and for other purposes. “Federal Land Assistance, Management and Enhancement Act or FLAME Act”
  • H.R. 3522 (T. Udall): To ratify a conveyance of a portion of the Jicarilla Apache Reservation to Rio Arriba County, State of New Mexico, pursuant to the settlement of litigation between the Jicarilla Apache Nation and Rio Arriba County, State of New Mexico, to authorize issuance of a patent for said lands, and to change the exterior boundary of the Jicarilla Apache Reservation accordingly, and for other purposes.
  • S. 2457 (Lieberman): A bill to provide for extensions of leases of certain land by Mashantucket Pequot (Western) Tribe.
  • H.R. 1575 (Stupak): To reaffirm and clarify the Federal relationship of the Burt Lake Band as a distinct federally recognized Indian Tribe, and for other purposes. “Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians Reaffirmation Act”
  • H.R. 3490 (Radanovich): To transfer administrative jurisdiction of certain Federal lands from the Bureau of Land Management to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to take such lands into trust for Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians of the Tuolumne Rancheria, and for other purposes. “Tuolumne Me-Wuk Land Transfer Act of 2007”
House Natural Resources Committee
1324 Longworth

04/17/2008 at 02:00PM

Surface transportation and the global economy

Witnesses

  • Siva Yam, President, United States of America-China Chamber of Commerce
  • John Isbell, Global Director of Delivery Logistics, Nike
  • Ray Kuntz, Chief Executive Officer, Watkins and Shepard Trucking, On behalf of the American Trucking Associations
  • Edward Wytkind, President, Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
   Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee
406 Dirksen

04/16/2008 at 10:00AM

The Department of Energy's FutureGen Program

On January 31, 2008, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced a significant departure from its clean coal initiative, FutureGen. Originally conceived in 2003, FutureGen was touted as a pollution-free power plant of the future intended to showcase cutting-edge technologies to address climate change and advance the President’s hydrogen initiative.

Panel I

  • C. H. “Bud” Albright, Under Secretary of Energy, Department of Energy

Panel II

  • Jeffrey N. Phillips, Program Manager, Advanced Coal Generation EPRI
  • Ben Yamagata, Executive Director, Coal Utilization Research Council
  • Paul W. Thompson, Senior Vice President, Energy Services, E.ON U.S. LLC
House Science, Space, and Technology Committee
   Energy Subcommittee
2318 Rayburn

04/15/2008 at 10:00AM