Hill Heat

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.

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”

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

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

• Jonathan Patz, M.D., M.P.H., Professor of Environmental Studies & Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin- Madison
• Kristie Ebi, Ph.D, M.P.H.., President, ESS LLC
• John Balbus, M.D, M.P.H.., Chief Scientist and Program Director, Environmental Defense Fund
• Ambassador John W. McDonald, Chairman and CEO, Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy

Panel I:

• Honorable Richard E. Stickler, Acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health, United States Department of Labor
• John Howard, Director, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services

Panel II:

• J. Davitt McAteer, Esq., Vice President of Sponsored Programs, Wheeling Jesuit University
• Cecil Roberts, International President, United Mine Workers of America
• Bruce Watzman, Vice President, Safety and Health, National Mining Association