Hill Heat

The Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will host military and energy experts to examine how a major disruption in oil supply could affect the economy and America’s national security. With near $100 oil and rising gasoline and heating oil costs, America is already teetering on the verge of a major economic crisis. Last week, several energy and military experts came together to hold a “war game” exercise on the geopolitical effects of an oil crisis, called “Oil Shockwave”. Testifying before the committee will be the former head of the EPA, Carol Browner, who was a participant in the oil war game, along with the former Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Dennis Blair, who observed the oil shock exercise and is involved in energy security issues.

Witnesses

• Carol P. Browner, former Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and current Principal of the Albright Group, LLC
• Admiral Dennis Blair, USN (Ret.), former Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command

11/07/2007 at 09:00AM

The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on whether domestic energy industry will have the available workforce – crafts and professional – to meet our nation’s growing energy needs and if gaps exist, what policies the Congress should take to address these gaps.

Panel 1

• Ms. Emily DeRocco, Department of Labor
• Ms. Patricia Hoffman, Department of Energy
• Ms. Andra Cornelius, Workforce Florida

Panel 2

• Mr. Norm Szydlowski, Colonial Pipeline
• Mr. Paul Bowers, Southern Company
• Dr. Ray Stults, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
• Ms. Carol Berrigan, Nuclear Energy Institute
• Mr. Jim Hunter, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

11/06/2007 at 10:00AM

Monday, November 5 will be Power Shift Lobby Day. Following the hearing on youth and climate change, Power Shift members will meet with representatives from 10 am to 5 pm, with a noon rally on the steps of the Capitol, and a Congressional reception at 6 PM.

Speakers at the rally will include:

• Global Warming Committee Chairman Ed Markey
• Rep. Chris Van Hollen
• Van Jones, Ella Baker Center
• former EPA Admin. Carol Browner

11/05/2007 at 10:00AM

On Monday thousands of young energy and climate leaders will descend on Capitol Hill to send a message to Congress: we must pass the energy bill before Congress (HR 3221) so we can begin the transition towards a cleaner, safer, more prosperous future without oil dependence or global warming.

The day of events starts with several of these leaders appearing before Chairman Edward J. Markey and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Chairman Markey and those testifying will then travel to the West Lawn of the Capitol to meet thousands of supporters who will call for more green jobs, more renewable energy, and higher fuel economy standards, among other clean energy measures.

Congress is currently considering energy legislation that would raise fuel economy standards for America’s vehicles to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, increase the use of renewable energy, and create millions of new “green collar” jobs.

Witnesses

• Billy Parish, Energy Action Coalition
• Brittany R. Cochran, Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative
• Cheryl Lockwood, Alaska Youth for Environmental Action
• Katelyn McCormick, Students Promoting Environmental Students
• Mike Reagan, California PIRG

11/05/2007 at 09:30AM

Brought to you by the group that did the April 14th event up on the hill, this promises to be the biggest DC event! We will meet at the Lincoln Memorial from 1-3 pm for speakers, video petitions and a whole lot of awareness.

Confirmed speakers include Van Jones, head of the Ella Baker Center, and Dr. Beverly Wright of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice.

In I Have a Dream where I’m Biking, bicyclists will be leaving from American University around noon and will be meeting “The Big One in DC” down at the Memorial as they are about to start.

11/03/2007 at 01:00PM

On November 3rd Step It Up will gather at places across the country named after historic leaders to demand that our representatives address four key priorities to stop global warming.

They plan to ask every Senator and Representative, and every candidate for those offices, to come to these rallies, along with state and local officials. Once they’re there, we’ll present politicians with the three “1 Sky” priorities prepared in the last few months by climate campaigners across the country. They are:

• Green Jobs Now: 5 million green jobs conserving 20% of our energy by 2015
• Cut Carbon 80% by 2050: Freeze climate pollution levels now and cut at least 80% by 2050 and 30% by 2020
• No New Coal: A moratorium on new coal-fired power plants

11/03/2007 at 12:00AM

The Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming will hold a hearing on Friday November 2, at 2:30 p.m. in the Olympic Room at the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle, Washington. The hearing is entitled, “Bright Lights in the Cities: Pathways to an Energy-Efficient Future.” Witnesses will be by invitation only.

Witnesses

• Mayor Bloomberg, City of New York
• Mayor Diaz, City of Miami, Florida
• Mayor Nickels, City of Seattle, Washington
• Mayor Palmer, City of Trenton, New Jersey
• Mayor Villaraigosa, City of Los Angeles, CA

11/02/2007 at 02:30PM

On November 2, 2007, thousands of young adults will converge on Washington, D.C. for Power Shift 2007, the first national youth summit to solve the climate crisis. Youth of all backgrounds will use their experience from local and state level climate change movements to create a fresh, positive, and inspiring vision of the future, one focused on our potential to overcome the challenges of the 21st century, build a clean energy economy, achieve energy independence, create millions of green jobs, increase global equity, and revitalize the American economy.

Power Shift will take the climate movement to new levels. At this conference, leaders of our generation will share ideas, learn new skills, make new connections, establish a national voice for our generation, and send a united message to our national leaders: we are moving beyond the same old special interests, empty promises, and inadequate results to embrace a new paradigm that leverages our strengths and achieves what is possible for our future. Something incredible is happening.

Our organizing committee has set out three ambitious goals:

1. Make the U.S. Presidential candidates and Congress take global warming seriously. It is widely accepted that the next U.S. president must make global warming a priority for us to solve the crisis before we reach a point of no return. With youth voting rates on the rise, we have the opportunity to drastically affect the 2008 Presidential Election and ensure our next president puts us on a path to stopping climate change.
2. Empower a truly diverse network of young leaders. The organizers of Power Shift understand the limitations of mainstream environmentalism and its history of engaging primarily white, highly educated, privileged citizens on the left while leaving behind other communities. We must diversify our movement to include every community in America and shift our culture towards one of sustainability and justice for everyone, addressing traditional racial, ethnic, geographic, and ideological divisions.
3. Achieve broad geographic diversity. We want this convergence to represent nearly every Congressional district in the United States in order to demand scientifically based solutions from all who represent us. Only when this fire is burning in every state of the union with broad awareness and pointed activism from the ground up, will we have the political power needed to take on the fossil fuel industry.

That’s where you come in. To reach our goal of uniting thousands of young people at Power Shift, we need your help. Please share this message with at least ten friends and help grow our movement. The shift starts with you. Become a Campus Coordinator!

11/02/2007 at 12:00AM

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) invites you to learn about national renewable electricity portfolio standards such as the one included in the House energy bill (HR 3221, Sect. 9611) as the House and Senate go to conference on the energy bill. A Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) is a market-based mechanism that requires utilities to gradually increase the portion of electricity produced from renewable resources such as wind, biomass, geothermal, solar, incremental hydropower and marine energy. Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia have RPSs, covering over 40 percent of the nation’s electrical load. A national RPS has passed the Senate in the last three Congresses, although it is not included in the Senate energy bill (HR.6).

A national RPS has many attributes that can benefit all states, including lowering natural gas prices, providing manufacturing jobs, improving air quality, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating larger, stable markets for renewable energy technologies. A June analysis by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) of a national RPS proposed by Senate Energy Committee Chair Bingaman (D-NM) requiring electric utilities to acquire 15 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020, found net consumer cost to increase just 0.3 percent through 2030 compared to the reference case. EIA also found that by 2030, prices for natural gas and coal, two key fuels for the electric power sector, are lower with the RPS than in the reference case. Speakers for this event include:

• Leon Lowery, Majority Staff, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
• Chris Namovicz, Operations Research Analyst, Energy Information Administration
• Dr. Marie Walsh, Adjunct Associate Professor, Dept. of Agricultural Economics, University of Tennessee
• Jeff Deyette, Energy Analyst, Union of Concerned Scientists
• Bill Prindle, Deputy Director, American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy

Some are concerned that not all states, particularly those in the Southeast, have sufficient renewable resources to satisfy a national RPS. In 2005, bioenergy was the largest component of renewable electricity production in the nation, comprising 56 percent of all renewable electricity and 1.3 percent of total electricity. This percentage can be increased significantly since each state has important biomass resources that can be utilized sustainably to produce clean, renewable, domestic energy. According to the EIA analysis, biomass generation-from dedicated biomass plants and existing coal plants co-firing with biomass fuel-grows the most by 2030, more than tripling from 102 billion kilowatt-hours (kwh) in the reference case to 318 billion kwh with the RPS policy. In addition to renewable energy, HR 3221 includes four percent energy efficiency (25 percent of the RPS credits) as part of the standard, which allows states to make use of low-cost efficiency opportunities to help meet the standard. At least three states (including Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania) include energy efficiency as part of their RPS. In August 2007, North Carolina enacted a Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard requiring all investor-owned utilities in the state to supply 12.5 percent of 2020 retail electricity sales in the state from eligible energy resources by 2021.

11/01/2007 at 02:00PM

The purpose of the hearing is to explore the fiscal and distributional impacts of limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

Witnesses

• Dr. Peter Orszag, Director, Congressional Budget Office
• Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• David D. Doniger, Policy Director, Natural Resources Defense Council
• Anne E. Smith, Ph.D., Vice President, CRA International

Witnesses testified that global climate change will have serious effects— Witnesses testified that the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, have gradually increased over the past century and are contributing to the warming of Earth’s climate.

In light of the scientific evidence about the potential damages this could cause, momentum is growing to impose mandatory limits to stabilize and eventually reduce U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases.

exceeding costs, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)— While it is difficult to assign a quantitative value to the benefits of climate change mitigation, CBO testified that “most analyses suggest that a carefully designed program to begin lowering carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions would produce greater benefits than costs.” This hearing examined ways to minimize the cost of climate change policy, apart from the benefits that would be derived from pursuing the policy in the first place.

11/01/2007 at 11:30AM