Hill Heat

From the Wonk Room.

“Several hundred people marched on Duke Energy headquarters this morning” – and forty-four were arrested – “to decry the expansion of Duke’s Cliffside coal-fired power plant in Rutherford County.”

Oxfam report: “Emergency organizations could be overwhelmed within seven years” as the “victims of climate change-related disasters” “increase by “54% to more than 375 million people a year on average by 2015.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH): ” What many people” – see Roy Blunt (R-MO), Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Rep. Fred Upton (R-OH) – “don’t understand is that climate change legislation can make our region and our country stronger.”

From the Wonk Room.

Wildfires fueled by “high winds and bone-dry conditions” raged through Oklahoma and Texas, burning over 200,000 acres of land. In Texas, the fires destroyed two towns and killed three people, while in Oklahoma, “losses from wildfires could reach $20 million dollars.”

Michigan officials “announced investments in four new operations that would employ several thousand workers” in advanced battery production collectively worth about $1.7 billion. The projects “illustrate the state’s burgeoning hold on the vehicle battery production market.”

St. Louis-based Peabody Energy Corp, the world’s largest coal company, announced “first-quarter profit tripled” to $170 million.

From the Wonk Room.

Yesterday, the Energy Department proposed lighting standards for fluorescent and incandescent lamps that could “save consumers and businesses almost $40 billion between 2012 and 2042 and eliminate the need for as much as 3,850 megawatts of power generating capacity by that date.”

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), speaking at an MIT conference on a clean-energy economy yesterday: “We have to set aside a certain amount of carbon credits to ensure that the steel and the paper and other trade-sensitive, energy-intensive industries are not exploited in the near term by the Chinese and others.”

The National Marine Fisheries Service announced it “will protect habitat for belugas in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, despite a lawsuit from Gov. Sarah Palin (R) seeking to wrest the whales from federal management.”

Please join us Friday, April 10th at noon (eastern time) for a national conference call to learn about one of most exciting climate bills ever introduced in the U.S. Congress. Do you want a STRONG carbon cap? Do you want 100% auction of carbon permits? Do you oppose carbon offsets and the complications they can cause? Do you also want to help protect Americans, especially low-income families, from rising energy prices?

Then you owe it to yourself to join this national conference call on Friday. Learn more about how a “cap and dividend” process will work. Learn why, to be effective, a national carbon cap must be simple, fair, and built to last. Learn about the legislation just introduced by Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), a powerful leader in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Featured speakers on the call will include

• Michael Noble, executive director of Fresh Energy in Minnesota
• Mike Tidwell, executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network in Maryland/Virginia

The call-in number is: 877-363-2003, code 1051052115

The call is sponsored by:

• Montana Environmental Information Center (MT)
• Fresh Energy (MN)
• Penn Future (PA)
• New Energy Economy (NM)
• Center for Civic Policy (NM)
• Climate Protection Campaign (CA)
• Chesapeake Climate Action Network (MD/VA/DC)
• Plains Justice (IA)
• New York Public Interest Research Group (NY)
• South Carolina Coastal Conservation League (SC)
• Ohio Citizen Action (OH)

Learn more about the cap and dividend concept at www.capanddividend.org. For further information, email George Abar at [email protected] or Ted Glick at [email protected]

More than two dozen organizations, including well-respected groups from the research, advocacy, faith-based, labor and civil rights communities, have come together to ensure that emerging climate legislation protects and provides opportunity for society’s most vulnerable individuals and families. The Climate Equity Alliance unites around shared concerns about the effects of climate change and climate change legislation on low- and moderate-income households. Alliance members believe climate legislation should both help to build an inclusive green economy — providing pathways to prosperity and expanding opportunity for America’s workers and communities — and ensure that low- and moderate-income people receive relief from the higher energy costs that will result, so that they are not pushed into poverty or made poorer.

This conference call for reporters will unveil the Climate Equity Alliance and present the principles drawing these groups together, with particular attention to how policymakers should move forward following the draft legislation introduced by Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA).

Speakers:

• Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, CEO, Green For All
• Gerry Hudson, Executive Vice President, SEIU
• Other speakers TBA

Click here to register for this conference call.

CLIMATE EQUITY ALLIANCE MEMBERS INCLUDE:

• Green for All
• Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
• Center for American Progress
• Service Employees International Union
• NAACP
• National Hispanic Environmental Council
• Oxfam America
• First Focus
• Economic Policy Institute
• Redefining Progress
• US Action
• Coalition on Human Needs
• The Workforce Alliance
• Center for Law and Social Policy
• The Washington Office of Public Policy, Women’s Division, United Methodist Church
• Union for Reform Judaism
• National Low Income Housing Coalition
• ACORN
• Policy Link
• Citizens for Tax Justice
• Enterprise Community Partners

From the Wonk Room.

“Windmills off the East Coast could generate enough electricity to replace most, if not all, the coal-fired power plants in the United States,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Monday. “It is not technology that is pie-in-the sky; it is here and now.”

In a letter to Science not available to the public, prominent climate scientists argue “it is imperative we improve the exchange of information between scientists and public stakeholders.”

As Antarctic ice shelves crumble at the end of the southern summer, the northern summer begins with the Arctic “on thinner ice than ever before,” with 90 percent of sea ice less than three years old.

The first of the two public hearings on its proposed mandatory registry for greenhouse gases will be held Monday, April 6, 2009, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Tuesday, April 7, 2009, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Arlington, Virginia. Logistical information to facilitate your attendance is provided below. Pre-registration especially for those wishing to make public comments is recommended due to time and capacity limitations. All visitors will need to go through security and present a valid photo identification, such as a driver’s license. Once you arrive in the lobby level, you will be directed to the hearing’s location. EPA will also web stream the public hearing:

• Web Streaming Information for April 6, 2009
• Web Streaming Information for April 7, 2009

Hearing Location

Environmental Protection Agency Conference Center — Lobby Level
One Potomac Yard (South Building)
2777 S. Crystal Drive
Arlington, VA 22202

For information on access or services for individuals with disabilities, and to request accommodation of a disability, please contact Carole Cook at 202-343-9263 or via email at [email protected] at least 10 days prior to the meeting to provide ample time to process your request.

The Environmental Protection Agency has announced that it will hold a two-day public hearing next week in Arlington, Va. on its “proposal for the first comprehensive national system for reporting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced by major sources in the United States.”

The hearing will take place Monday and Tuesday, April 6 and 7 from 9:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the EPA Potomac Yard South Conference Center, 2777 Crystal Drive, Room S-1204, Arlington, VA 22202. Daily parking is available in the building and photo ID is required.

With the U.S. facing combined threats from economic and climate crises, the Blue Green Alliance and its labor and environmental partners are releasing their policy recommendations calling for passage of comprehensive climate legislation, driven by a cap-and-trade system, in 2009. Through strong climate legislation, America can jumpstart its economic recovery and create millions of good jobs for America’s workforce.

The press teleconference will be on Friday, March 27, at 10 a.m. ET and will coincide with the release of the BGA policy statement on climate change.

The call will include Leo Gerard, International President, United Steelworkers; Frances Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC); Jim Clark, President, IUE-CWA; and David Foster, Executive Director of the Blue Green Alliance, who will discuss the urgency for climate change legislation, as well as the political and economic dynamics in the debate around this issue. Climate change legislation is needed in 2009 to rapidly put people back to work with millions of jobs building the clean energy economy, promote long-term economic growth and reduce global warming emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

CALL-IN: (888) 275 – 4480 Reference ID #: 92215225

Participants

• United Steelworkers International President Leo Gerard
• NRDC President Frances Beinecke
• IUE-CWA President Jim Clark
• Blue Green Alliance Executive Director David Foster

From the Department of Energy, Energy Secretary Steven Chu today offered a $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, Inc. to support the company’s construction of a commercial-scale manufacturing plant for its proprietary cylindrical solar photovoltaic panels. The loan guarantee is conditional on Solyndra satisfying equity commitments. Announcing his first loan guarantee, Chu said:

This investment is part of President Obama’s aggressive strategy to put Americans back to work and reduce our dependence on foreign oil by developing clean, renewable sources of energy. We can create millions of new, good paying jobs that can’t be outsourced. Instead of relying on imports from other countries to meet our energy needs, we’ll rely on America’s innovation, America’s resources, and America’s workers.

Based in Fremont, CA, Solyndra is currently ramping up production in its initial manufacturing facilities. Once finalized, the DOE loan guarantee will enable the company to build and operate its manufacturing processes at full commercial scale.

Solyndra estimates that:

• The construction of this complex will employ approximately 3,000 people.
• The operation of the facility will create over 1,000 jobs in the United States.
• The installation of these panels will create hundreds of additional jobs in the United States.
• The commercialization of this technology is expected to then be duplicated in multiple other manufacturing facilities.

Secretary Chu initially set a target to have the first conditional commitments out by May.