National Clean Energy Summit 2.0: Jobs and the New Economy August 10, 2009

Participants at the National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 in Las Vegas, NV, discussed ways smart federal and state-level policies can work to upscale existing markets for energy-efficiency retrofits, renewable energy, and energy infrastructure in a way that creates jobs, saves consumers money, and generates private investment. In conjunction with the summit, John Podesta and former Senator Timothy E. Wirth (D-CO) authored a short memo about the promise of natural gas as a bridge fuel for the 21st century, and CAP released a report with the Energy Future Coalition.

Policy from the Event: Wired for Progress Version 2.0 April 1, 2009

Bracken Hendricks provides an update to February’s CAP report in “Wired for Progress 2.0: Building a National Clean-Energy Smart Grid” while John Podesta, T. Boone Pickens, and Majority Leader Harry Reid wrote a letter to the president on the need to rebuild our economy on the foundation of clean, domestic, renewable, and efficient energy by rewiring the national transmission grid.

Policy from the roundtable discussion: Building the New Economy February 23, 2009

In Wired for Progress, Bracken Hendricks outlines how to develop a secure, reliable, national, and clean electricity grid to power America’s coming clean energy economy. In addition to this report an energy grid 101 and a infographic on the four components of success on the clean energy pipeline have been produced by the Center for American Progress.

Policy from the Event 2008 National Clean Energy Summit August 18-19th 2008

The 2008 National Clean Energy Summit at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas produced an ambitious yet attainable outline for the future of clean energy in America and throughout the world including an outline of state and federal guiding principles to deliver to the upcoming national political conventions.

Click Here to See Full Policy Archives»

National Clean Energy Summit 2.0: Jobs and the New Economy August 10, 2009

Participants at the National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 in Las Vegas, NV, discussed ways smart federal and state-level policies can work to upscale existing markets for energy-efficiency retrofits, renewable energy, and energy infrastructure in a way that creates jobs, saves consumers money, and generates private investment. In conjunction with the summit, John Podesta and former Senator Timothy E. Wirth (D-CO) authored a short memo about the promise of natural gas as a bridge fuel for the 21st century, and CAP released a report with the Energy Future Coalition.

Rebuilding America: A Policy Framework for Investment in Energy Efficiency Retrofits, Natural Gas: A Bridge Fuel for the 21st Century, Event Media

Click here for more information

Wired for Progress Version 2.0 April 1, 2009

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), energy executive T. Boone Pickens and Center for American Progress Action Fund president and CEO John Podesta, convened a press conference in Washington, DC to release a joint letter to President Obama in which they thanked him for his leadership to date on clean energy and urged him to, “recommit [his] efforts to rapidly build the infrastructure for a new energy economy – using all the policy and leadership tools at [his] disposal.” The letter was accompanied by “Wired for Progress 2.0: Building a National Clean-Energy Smart Grid,” a major policy paper written by Bracken Hendricks and published by the Center for American Progress “Wired for Progress 2.0” outlines the measures necessary to transform our nation’s electricity transmission and distribution systems to support massive new quantities of renewable energy and improve the intelligence, security, and reliability of the grid.

Letter to the President, Event Video, Wired for Progress 2.0:Building a National Clean-Energy Smart Grid

NCEP: Building the New Economy Round Table February 23, 2009

The first National Clean Energy Summit in August 2008 identified the need for improved electricity transmission infrastructure as a major obstacle to our nation’s clean energy agenda. To address this specific challenge, the National Clean Energy Project convened a high-level round table forum in Washington, DC with business leaders, Cabinet secretaries and other elected officials, and the heads of industry associations and advocacy groups to identify key policies needed to build a national, clean energy smart grid. The policies identified would boost new renewable energy production, improve transmission and distribution, and help reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

Background Information, Vision Statment, Event Videos, Press Conference, Event Summary, Wired for Progress:Building a National Clean-Energy Smart Grid

National Clean Energy Summit August 18-19th 2008

Industry leaders, scientists, policy experts, elected officials, citizens, and the media gathered in Nevada at the National Clean Energy Summit hosted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, U.S. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), and University of Nevada, Las Vegas, to chart a course for our nation’s clean energy future. Participants included President William Jefferson Clinton, Energy Executive T. Boone Pickens, CAPAF president John D. Podesta and over two dozen other leaders and executives from the public, private and non-profit sectors.

Agenda, Video Highlights, Policy Recommendations

Click Here to See Full Events Archives»

Participants at the 2009 National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 in Las Vegas, NV, discussed ways smart federal and state-level policies can work to upscale existing markets for energy-efficiency retrofits, renewable energy, and energy infrastructure in a way that creates jobs, saves consumers money, and generates private investment. In conjunction with the summit, John Podesta and former Senator Timothy E. Wirth (D-CO) authored a short memo about the promise of natural gas as a bridge fuel for the 21st century, and CAP released a report with the Energy Future Coalition.

For full event highlights including video, photos and transcripts visit the 2009 National Clean Energy Summit website

April 1, 2009

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama,

We write to you as leaders representing divergent political beliefs and operating in diverse fields of endeavor, from elected office to private industry to nonprofit research. Despite these differences, we share an abiding common concern and a pressing urgency on the need to rebuild our economy on the foundation of clean, domestic, renewable, and efficient energy. We know you share our conviction that energy innovation can serve as the catalyst for economic renewal. We ask you today to recommit your efforts to rapidly build the infrastructure for a new energy economy using all the policy and leadership tools at your disposal. This challenge begins with rewiring the electricity grid to facilitate large-scale use of renewable energy, dramatic gains in energy efficiency, and the move to clean domestic transportation fuels to reduce the economic, environmental, and national security risks posed by our dependence on foreign oil.

Today, America confronts three closely related and growing crises. For our economy, we must rebuild infrastructure, improve competitiveness, and create family-supporting jobs. For national security, we must restore global leadership and reduce our vulnerability—and this means reducing foreign oil dependence and averting dislocations due to global warming. And to preserve our planet, we must head off the worst effects of climate change by rebuilding the economy on the foundation of low-carbon energy. These separate crises share a common solution and offer a compelling vision for moving the nation forward. But bold action will require strong leadership and thoughtful policy. This letter highlights a few areas where your leadership can have great effect.

Our current electricity system was not designed for today’s challenges—from terrorism to climate change—and the status quo is expensive. Disruptions to the grid cost the economy $100 billion per year in damages and lost business, while transmission congestion costs consumers $22 billion annually in higher prices. A modern electricity system, on the other hand, promises great benefits and delaying its implementation means missed opportunity. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, producing 20 percent of U.S. electricity from wind would reduce electric sector CO2 emissions by one quarter in 2030, or the equivalent of taking 140 million cars off the road. This investment would create 350,000 domestic jobs in support of the wind industry, including steel workers, electrical manufacturing workers, and many other good local jobs, while producing $600 million a year in new rural economic development.

On February 23 of this year, we came together at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. for a National Clean Energy Project summit, which focused on the challenge of capturing this energy opportunity. At that event, we brought together an influential group of leaders from your administration, Congress and states, business, labor, and advocacy to help refine and advance the policy agenda and build political will to support a clean, reliable, and intelligent energy infrastructure for the 21st century. At this event, the Center for American Progress presented a discussion draft of “Wired for Progress,” a policy paper that offers a possible framework for compromise to build support for rewiring the nation’s electricity grid.

Since that time, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) has introduced the Clean Renewable Energy and Economic Development Act, a major piece of transmission legislation focused on rebuilding our electricity grid. Senator Reid’s bill and the CAP plan share many features in common. Further, such a national strategy to rewire the electric grid and bring large-scale clean renewable energy to market will advance the goals that are articulated in the Pickens Plan: to exchange reliance on clean renewable energy and domestic natural gas for our current dependence on foreign oil.

This last month has also seen great political momentum build on clean energy. Senator Bingaman has also circulated draft text of a transmission bill, and the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held hearings on the subject. Both the House and Senate are moving rapidly toward legislation that combines forward-looking energy policies with serious action on climate, to drive new investment into the clean energy transition. In such an integrated energy bill new political coalitions are possible, and a truly national consensus can be achieved. This will involve support for strong renewable energy and efficiency standards, supported by commitment to a national transmission infrastructure and intelligent “smart grid” distribution, which both ensure that cleaner energy also improves reliability, security, and affordability for consumers over time.

We attach to this letter a copy of “Wired for Progress 2.0,” a report following up on the February summit, outlining a framework and strategy for rewiring the grid. Four key principles must guide this effort.

• First, a national clean-energy smart grid must be well planned and built on existing efforts, giving states and communities a strong voice in the process and designing a national electricity network to access our vast renewable energy resources.
• Second, this sustainable grid infrastructure must actually be built. This will require stronger authorities to permit and site new transmission lines, with serious environmental review and local engagement—but with an equal commitment to see projects through to completion
• Third, costs must be shared broadly so that no single state or group of ratepayers is left to carry these investments alone. Moving to a clean-energy infrastructure is a national problem that will require a national solution and shared commitment.
• And fourth, this new grid must be built for the purpose of transitioning to low-carbon energy—in other words, it must be green. A more secure and resilient grid is important in its own right, but if we rebuild the grid without emphasizing this goal, there is a danger that we could unintentionally increase global warming emissions. Instead, we must seek assurances that a more robust transmission system contributes to building a low-carbon economy.

In addition, this national clean energy grid must be designed and built with three other principles clearly in mind:

• It must be smart, deploying advanced information technology to enable better management, control, and consumer choice.
• It must be secure, with strong protections against terrorist attacks, ensuring both physical and cybersecurity.
• It must create good jobs. Linking job-quality standards, meaningful training opportunities, and guarantees of local community benefits will help make sure that building a clean-energy economy produces lasting economic development and lifts up the lives of citizens and communities nationwide.

Your leadership in proposing and signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act laid an important foundation for rebuilding our energy system. The recovery package will invest in several thousand miles of new transmission lines, millions of smart electric meters, and millions more energy-efficient homes. While these public investments are critical to “priming the pump” and jump-starting new demand, in the long run it will be private enterprise that rebuilds America.

As a result, our next great challenge is to set better rules and send the right market signals to drive private investment. Energy and climate policies will help steer hundreds of billions in new private capital to build the infrastructure of a national clean-electricity grid; new power plants that run on the wind, sun, and geothermal energy; and smart technology systems to modernize our energy use. In the new clean energy economy, the federal government will set the road signs, but it is the private sector that will drive.

We thank you for your leadership thus far, and urge you to continue to advance a bold national clean-energy vision that is informed by these smart transmission and infrastructure policies that we have found essential from engaging with many stakeholders in the energy debate. We stand ready to support you as we rebuild American together on the foundation of clean, domestic, and efficient energy use.

Sincerely,
Senator Harry Reid
T. Boone Pickens
John D. Podesta

Download (pdf)

Center for American Progress Report: Wired for Progress 2.0
Wired for Progress 2.0 Press Release
Event Video

“Wired for Progress Version 2.0,” honed in on the key decisions that Congress and the Obama administration faced as they took up the  challenge of rebuilding America’s electricity infrastructure. Version 2.0 focused on the four major hurdles to building a national clean energy smart grid—planning, siting, cost allocation, and ensuring the low-carbon attributes of the electricity. We then examined three broader policy imperatives—grid intelligence, physical and cyber security, and job training and workforce development—that must also be part of modernization efforts.

In February, the Center for American Progress published a major report on the urgent need to build a national clean energy smart grid to power an innovative, low-carbon 21st century economy that combats global warming and creates millions of good jobs. Titled “Wired for Progress 1.0,” our report -based on an extensive stakeholder outreach process undertaken in partnership with the Energy Future Coalition – detailed the reasons why we need to build this national clean energy infrastructure quickly, and outlined key policy measures to move this complex project forward.

In just a few short weeks since that February release, Congress made progress on drafting concrete legislative language and in building the political will to turn these policies into law. As the debate moved forward, it was critical that the essential features of the proposal remain clear, and the basic outlines of a national compromise were preserved. Reducing our nation’s dependence on foreign oil by examining short- and long-term solutions to replace foreign oil with domestic resources to fuel vehicles and trucks, including natural gas, was also an important issue that needed to be addressed.

Featured Speakers:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

T. Boone Pickens, founder and chairman, BP Capital Management

John D. Podesta, President and Chief Executive Officer, Center for American Progress Action Fund

Bracken Hendricks, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress Action Fund

Media Contacts:
Sarah Hawkins
212-446-1890
Shawkins@sloanepr.com

John Neurohr
Center for American Progress Action Fund
202-481-8182
Jneurohr@americanprogressaction.org

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, T. Boone Pickens and John Podesta Release Letter to President Barack Obama Urging Action on Clean-Energy Infrastructure

Center for American Progress Action Fund Issues Policy Paper “Wired for Progress 2.0: Building a National Clean -Energy Smart Grid”

Builds on February 23, 2009 National Clean Energy Project Summit

Washington, DC, Wednesday, April 1, 2009 – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), energy executive T. Boone Pickens and Center for American Progress Action Fund president and CEO John Podesta, released today a letter to United States President Barack Obama, thanking him for his leadership to date on clean energy and urging him to, “recommit your efforts to rapidly build the infrastructure for a new energy economy – using all the policy and leadership tools at your disposal.” The letter was accompanied by a policy research paper, written by Bracken Hendricks and published by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, entitled “Wired for Progress 2.0: Building a National Clean-Energy Smart Grid.” Both documents were released at a press conference in Washington, DC, which featured Senator Reid and Messrs. Pickens and Podesta.

Senator Reid, Mr. Pickens and Mr. Podesta indicated in their letter that they came from differing areas of responsibility, political views and experience, but were united behind a common goal of ensuring that the nation meets its energy challenges which, “begins with rewiring the electricity grid to facilitate large-scale use of renewable energy, dramatic gains in energy efficiency, and the move to clean domestic transportation fuels to reduce the economic, environmental and national security risks posed by our ever-increasing foreign oil dependence.”

Commenting on the letter and the research paper Senator Reid said, “Investing in renewable energy is investing in jobs. Developing this industry is the key to economic and energy security for Nevada and the Nation. There has been a lot of talk over the past few years about the importance of developing our nation’s clean energy resources, but as we learned during the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas last summer, transmission remains one of our biggest obstacles. I am encouraged that the Obama administration is aware of the challenge and hope that this report — the product of February’s National Clean Energy Project — will provide the President’s team with the support necessary to move forward on our shared goals.”

Mr. Pickens said, “Building the infrastructure and the smart grid that will be able to distribute power from the wind and solar corridors to rest of the nation are essential to delivering on the promise of clean and renewable energy. This will create jobs, revitalize our economy and make our nation safer and more secure. Along with this effort on clean energy infrastructure, we need to focus on energy conservation and efficiency and sharpen our efforts to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by using our vast domestic natural gas resources in fleet transportation. I am encouraged by the progress we are making on clean energy infrastructure and more focused than ever on getting off foreign oil.”

“During this time of economic downturn, we need to reinvest in the basic infrastructure of our economy,” said John D. Podesta, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. “Today there is no more fundamental economic challenge than solving global warming in a way that creates good jobs and drives new growth and competitiveness. Rebuilding our electricity infrastructure around our renewable resources is smart economic policy and smart energy policy. This issue is this generation’s interstate highway system — it is a national problem requiring a national solution — and the federal government must act quickly to get it done.”

The Center for American Progress Action Fund originally offered the discussion draft of “Wired for Progress” at the National Clean Energy Project Summit on February 23, 2009 at the Newseum in Washington, DC and the final policy paper, “Wired for Progress 2.0: Building a National Clean-Energy Smart Grid,” offers a framework for compromise to build support for rewiring the nation’s electricity grid was released today. The National Clean Energy Project was moderated by United Nations Foundation President and former U.S. Senator Tim Wirth and participants included Senator Reid, Mr. Pickens, Mr. Podesta, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu, President Bill Clinton, and Vice President Al Gore along with other leaders from congressional and state leadership, business, labor, and advocacy. The event focused on the challenge of capturing this energy opportunity and helped refine and advance the policy agenda to build political will in support of a clean, reliable and intelligent energy infrastructure for the 21st century.

The policy paper was the product of extensive outreach to stakeholders undertaken by the Center for American Progress Action Fund in collaboration with the UN Foundation’s Energy Future Coalition. Among the elements in the policy paper, were four key principles to guide the nation’s efforts including:

• First, a national clean energy smart-grid must be well planned, building on existing efforts, giving states and communities a strong voice in the process, and designing national electricity network to our renewable energy resources.
• Second, this sustainable grid infrastructure must actually get built. This will require stronger authorities to permit and site these lines, with serious environmental review and local engagement, but with an equal commitment to see projects through to completion.
• Third, costs must be shared broadly so that no single state or groups of rate-payers are left to carry these investments alone. Moving to a clean energy infrastructure is a national problem that will require a national solution and shared commitment to investment.
• Fourth, this new grid must be built for the purpose of transitioning to low carbon energy – It must be green. A more secure and resilient grid is important in its own right, but if we rebuild the grid without emphasizing this goal, there is a danger that we could unintentionally increase the rate of global warming. Instead, we must seek assurance that a more robust transmission system contributes to building a low-carbon economy

About the National Clean Energy Project

Today’s event was convened by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was Honorary Chair. The forum grew out of the National Clean Energy Summit convened in 2008 by Sen. Reid, the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and the University Nevada Las Vegas. Today’s forum focused on modernizing and expanding the electricity grid, integrating energy efficiency and distributed generation into operation and regulation, rapidly increasing transmission capacity for renewable energy and reducing our nation’s dependence on foreign oil by using clean domestic alternative transportation fuels.
Download Press Release (pdf)

Letter to President Barack Obama Urging Action on Clean-Energy Infrastructure (pdf)
Center for American Progress Report: Wired for Progress 2.0
Event Video

Also see: Wired for Progress: Building a National Clean-Energy Smart Grid by Bracken Hendricks

“The next generation that’s coming after us will look back and assess what we did or didn’t do. And they’ll ask either one of two questions: Either, ‘what were you thinking? How could you have done this?’ or they’ll ask, ‘How did you find the courage to step up to the plate and do the right thing?’” said former Vice President Al Gore Monday at the National Clean Energy Project held in Washington, D.C. and sponsored by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Gore joined the moderator, former Senator Tim Wirth (D-CO), in a discussion that focused on the future of clean energy production in the United States. CAPAF CEO and President John Podesta hosted the event, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) was Honorary Chair.

Joining Wirth, Podesta, and Gore on the panel were former President Bill Clinton, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) and energy executive T. Boone Pickens. Also participating in the conversation were AFL-CIO president John Sweeny, CAPAF Senior Fellow Van Jones, Waterkeeper Alliance Board Chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and former Governor George Pataki (R-NY).

After Gore’s comments, Speaker Pelosi stressed that “we have to have an enormous vision about this as we go out to the American people,” while Senate Majority Leader Reid pointed to the recently passed recovery bill as progress on addressing energy security and climate.“[The economy recovery bill] was a giant step in the right direction, with $11 billion alone for the national energy grid—or as some have said, such as Energy Secretary Chu—a national energy highway.” The panel concurred that the stimulus bill passed by Congress and signed into law in February was a significant down payment on a clean energy future for America. Reid added that the federal government must be a key player in the nation’s efforts to produce clean energy and fight global warming.

Interior Secretary Salazar agreed that government must be involved, especially in the area of energy transmission. “On a personal note,” he added, “we must remember the REA [Rural Electrification Administration]. We didn’t get energy out into the San Luis Valley of Colorado until 1981. And as we all know, energy, especially green energy, is dependent on transmission.” Many participants supported proposals for a government build out of the transmission grid that will be primarily responsible for carrying this new green energy from rural areas where it’s produced to major cities and rural communities across the nation.

President Bill Clinton highlighted energy efficiency as a critical element of global warming reduction plans. “If the United States, India, China, and Russia met the current efficiency standards of the Japanese, it would take us 25 percent of the way to reducing 80 percent of the world’s carbon emissions by 2050,” he said. Although the funding for clean energy provided by the stimulus was an important first step, Clinton concluded that working with other nations was one of the most critical steps the U.S. government could take that would ultimately affect climate change.

Green job creation is another area in which the United States can take the lead, noted AFL-CIO President John Sweeny. “There is an important opportunity here for the United States to become a leader in technology and manufacturing capacity,” he noted. The National Building and Construction Trades Department, a national alliance headed by AFL-CIO, has put in place 11,000 apprenticeship-training programs for green job training.

Van Jones, a Senior Fellow at CAP, also thought education should be a core component to building out American green infrastructure. He mentioned the Green for All Academy he started with Gore to specifically address the issue of training America’s skilled workers for a shift into green energy production.

Lee Scott, chairman of the executive committee of the board of directors at Wal-Mart, focused on consumer choice, noting that the “average working people in America do care [about green products]—but they cannot afford to pay more” for them. According to Scott, businesses must improve energy efficiency and offer increasingly green options to customers. “What we have found at Wal-Mart,” he added, “is that when we give a choice that allows working people to save money and do things that are good for the environment, they pick the things that will save money and are good for the environment.”

The push for green energy production has been picking up steam among a few prominent business leaders such as Scott and T. Boone Pickens, founder of BP Capital and principal of BPC and TBP Investments Management. Pickens has championed a new energy model for American in recent years. While warning that the United States must cease its dependence on foreign oil, he reminded the panel “it is important to remember that wind does not power an 18-wheeler.” Pickens believed that clean natural gas would be a viable alternative for heavy diesel-run trucks and machinery, while a clean energy grid for residential and commercial uses is essential to expand the use of wind and solar power..

The discussion concluded with Wirth repeating the primary goal of the conference. “Rather than spending more time admiring the problem,” he said, “the purpose of today was to break through and see if we could find real solutions.” Overall, the panel accomplished its primary purpose—to raise the visibility of climate change and find working solutions among prominent policymakers and leaders from the business, labor, and nonprofit communities.

Related Links: Background Information, Vision Statment, Event Videos, Press Conference, Event Summary, Policy Report

Major leaders from government, business, labor and advocacy organizations gathered in Washington DC on February 23rd 2009 for a roundtable discussion on four key recommendations to reform U.S. energy policy. The principles they discussed would boost new renewable energy production, transmission and distribution, and reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. The leaders who participated in the discussion included President William Jefferson Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Representative Ed Markey (D-MA), energy executive T. Boone Pickens, and Center for American Progress Action Fund President John Podesta among other luminaries. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was the Honorary Chair, and the roundtable discussion was moderated by former US Senator Timothy Wirth.

The National Clean Energy Project: Building the New Economy Forum built upon the foundation laid at the “National Clean Energy Summit,” sponsored by Senator Reid, CAPAF, the University of Nevada Las Vegas in August 2008. The participants in the summit concluded that inadequate access to transmission was one of the most significant barriers to widespread development of renewable energy, and February’s event was planned to hone in on this issue specifically.

The discussion focused on guiding the transformation of our nation’s energy policies with particular attention to modernizing and expanding the electricity grid, integrating energy efficiency and distributed generation into operation, rapidly increasing transmission capacity for renewable energy, and reducing our nation’s dependence on foreign oil by examining short- and long-term solutions to replace foreign oil with domestic resources to fuel vehicles and trucks, including natural gas.

Event Video: Press Conference

This was followed by a roundtable discussion among the invited participants moderated by Mr. Wirth. The discussion focused on guiding the transformation of our nation’s energy policies with particular attention on modernizing the electricity grid, integrating energy efficiency and distributed generation into its operation and regulation, rapidly increasing transmission capacity for renewable energy, and reducing our nation’s dependence on foreign oil through natural gas, plug-in hybrids, and batteries in the transportation and distribution system.

Event Video: Part 1 of 3

Event Video: Part 2 of 3

Event Video: Part 3 of 3

Transcript (pdf)

Event Writeup and Tim Wirth’s Event Overview Video (pdf)

Full List of Participants
• Secretary of Energy Steven Chu
• Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
• Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
• House Energy Independence and Global Warming Select Committee Chair Ed Markey (D-MA)
• Senate Energy and Water Subcommittee Chairman, Appropriations Committee Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
• Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Acting Chairman Jon Wellinghoff
• Former Governor George Pataki (R-NY)
• Owens-Corning CEO Michael Thaman
• Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors and former CEO Lee Scott
• American Electric Power President and CEO Mike Morris
• Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope
• Riverkeeper Alliance Chief Prosecuting Attorney Robert Kennedy, Jr.
• American Wind Energy Association CEO Denise Bode
• National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners President Fred Butler
• Green for All Founder and President Van Jones
• Service Employees International Unions President Andy Stern
• U.S. Green Building Council President and CEO Rick Fedrizzi
• Sea Change Foundation President Nat Simons
• Remarks by Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid – Vision
• Remarks by T. Boone Pickens – Dependence on Oil
• Remarks by John Podesta – Challenge: Infrastructure

Related Links: Background Information, Vision Statment, Event Videos, Press Conference, Event Summary, Policy Report

Listen to the Event

Download the Event Audio (mp3)

Download the Event Video (mp4)

Transcript (pdf)

Part 1 of a roundtable discussion among the invited participants was moderated by Mr. Wirth. The discussion focused on guiding the transformation of our nation’s energy policies with particular attention on modernizing the electricity grid, integrating energy efficiency and distributed generation into its operation and regulation, rapidly increasing transmission capacity for renewable energy, and reducing our nation’s dependence on foreign oil through natural gas, plug-in hybrids, and batteries in the transportation and distribution system.

Event Writeup…
Event Video…