Hill Heat

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

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!

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.

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.

The Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming will hold a hearing on Thursday, November 1, at 9:30 a.m. in room TBD. The hearing is entitled, “Wildfires and the Climate Crisis.” Witnesses will be by invitation only.

See Markey’s dear colleague letter on the topic.

Markup of America’s Climate Security Act, S. 2191.

Prior to hearing changes were made to secure the support of Sen. Lautenberg, ensuring passage with the votes of Lieberman, Baucus, Lautenberg, and Warner. The changes made in the form of a substitute amendment, according to CQ:

• Extending the scope of the bill to cover all emissions from the use of natural gas. The introduced bill covers natural gas burned in power plants and industrial processes but not in commercial and residential buildings.
• Requiring the EPA to make recommendations to Congress based on periodic reports from the National Academy of Sciences. The bill already would direct the academy to evaluate whether changes in the law are necessary, based on the state of the environment and available technology.

Amendments were introduced by Sen. Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Barrasso (R-Wyo.). Changes made by amendments adopted at the markup:

• Advanced tech auto funding limited to vehicles with minimum of 35 mpg (Sanders 3)
• More allocations given to states (Barrasso 4)
• Low-rank coal definition changed from coal below 9000 BTU to 10000 BTU (Barrasso 2)

Live-blog informal transcript of the hearing is below.

As the Kyoto Protocol will expire in 2012, world leaders will gather in Bali in December, 2007 to discuss future alternative solutions tackling climate change issues.

The United States has agreed to join this group of world leaders as an active participant in the Bali summit and is willing to work with other countries to establish initiatives.

Indonesia, as the host country together with Forestry- 11 (countries with the largest tropical rainforests) is committed to preserving its environment as long as such efforts do not negatively impact its economy.

Global Nexus Institute, an Indonesian based think tank with offices in Jakarta and Washington DC invites you to join us in a discussion on these issues.

• What happened with the Kyoto Treaty and what should we expect from Bali?
• What is the US position on this issue?
• Is Sustainable Development using Avoided Deforestation the answer to the climate change challenge?
• What will it take to implement it?
• Who is going to finance it?
• How do we determine the baseline and monitoring system?

WELCOMING REMARKS His Excellency Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat, Indonesian Ambassador to the United States

THE SPEAKERS

• Gerhard Dieterle – Forestry Advisor, World Bank
• Steven Ruddell – Director of Forest Investnment & Sustainibility, Forecon Inc.
• Dr. Neil Franklin – Sustainability Director, APRIL Asia
• Annie Petsonk – International Counsel, Environmental Defense
• Harlan Watson – U.S. Department of State
• Christianto Wibisono – President, Global Nexus Institute

MODERATOR

• Paul Miller, Partner, Miller/Wenhold Capitol Strategies

Holeman Lounge at the National Press Club 529 14th Street NW, Washington DC 20045

Committee page

Witnesses

• Dr. Gary Yohe, Professor of Economics, Wesleyan University
• Mr. Jeffery Smith, Partner in Charge of Environmental Practice, Cravath, Swaine, and Moore
• Ms. Mindy Lubber, President, Ceres
• Mr. Russell Read, Chief Investment Officer, California Public Employees’ Retirement System

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) invites you to learn about the extensive biomass resources that are available in every state and region of the country to be tapped for sustainable production of electric power and heat. 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 right now. Despite the skepticism of its opponents, bioenergy has the potential to sustainably reduce greenhouse gas emissions, boost rural economies, provide jobs, revitalize rural communities, support farming, and implement sustainable forest stewardship.

Speakers for this event include:

• Larry Biles, Executive Director, Southern Forest Research Partnership
• Robert H. Davis, President, Forest Energy Corporation/Member, Future Forest, LLC.
• Dr. David Bransby, Professor of Energy Crops and Bioenergy, Auburn University
• Robert E. Cleaves, President, Cleaves and Company/Member, USA Biomass Power Producers Alliance

On Tuesday, October 30, 2007 the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the Committee on Science and Technology will hold a hearing to receive testimony on H.R. 3957, The Water- Use Efficiency and Conservation Research Act of 2007. The purpose of the hearing is to evaluate the need for research and development of technologies and processes to enhance water use efficiency and water conservation. The Committee will also ascertain perspectives on current federal efforts to promote water-use efficiency and conservation through programs such as the WaterSense program of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Witnesses

• Glen Daigger, Vice President at CH2MHill
• Ed Clerico, CEO of Alliance Environmental and Designer at the Solaire Project in NYC
• Val Little, Director of the Water Conservation Alliance of Southern Arizona
• Ron Thompson, District Manager of the Washington County Water Conservancy District
• John Veil, Senior Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory