COP-15

Bjorn Stigson; President of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, hosted an event Monday evening at the Niels Bohr event room in the Bella Center.

The event was conducted for the purposes of providing the audience with a greater understanding of the current domestic policies being undertaken in the US Congress.

The event started with perspectives from two government officials; first from Governor Chris Gregoire from the state of Washington, and then from Gina McCarthy Assistant Administrator for the EPA.

Governor Gregoire displayed how over the last 10 years states have been forced to take the lead in creating sound environmental and energy policies. She remarked that since she took office in 2005, the state of Washington has become the 5th largest wind power producer, the largest biofuel producer and will soon be the largest solar panel producer among all states in the union. Governor Gregoire stated that these initiatives were accomplished by providing tax incentives to clean technology firms. She stressed that the program was possible only because of the demand expressed by the residents of Washington. She continued her presentation stating, “when I took office in 2005 I made the goal of creating 25,000 clean technology jobs by 2012, as of 2008 we created 47,000.”  This clearly illustrates the potential that the clean technology industry has for job growth.  She concluded by stating the business community needs proper legislation in order to confidently invest into the economy.

Next up was Assistant Administrator for the EPA, Gina McCarthy. She reported on the production of the EPA’s newly published Endangerment Finding. The report was conducted for the purpose os assessing climate science on public Health. She reported that the findings have inspired the EPA to now consider green house gas(GHG) emissions as threats to public health. Assistant Administrator McCarthy concluded by stating that GHG emissions will now be regulated by the EPA under the Clean Air Act. This is a significant change in EPA regulatory policy.

The forum proceeded to include a business perspective from Senior Vice President of Federal Government and Regulatory Affairs for Duke Energy, Bill Tyndall.

Mr. Tyndall’s specialty is assessing domestic energy policy in the US. Tyndall explained the status of the domestic climate bill in the US Congress. He stated that the bill had succeeded in the House of Representatives and had moved its way through a Senate subcommittee. Unfortunately, this looks to be where the bill may sit for some time. Tyndall remarked, “The bill received one third of its votes in the house from California and New York alone. Since the Senate votes are delegated to 2 per state, the bill will have a much more difficult time passing through the Senate.” Nevertheless, Tyndall provided reason for optimism; stating that Democrats John Kerry and Joe Lieberman along with Republican Lindsey Graham have formed a coalition to persuade senators to pass the climate bill.  Tyndall also illustrated how Duke Energy had partnered with GE to lobby the Senate for the passing of climate legislation. He closed by stating that utilities are in dyer need of direction; without legislation, markets will continue to be unstable, leaving utilities with little incentive for deploying any sort of investment strategy.