Gore tapped for closing arguments at House hearings

04/21/09

Darren Samuelsohn, E&E senior reporter

Former Vice President Al Gore will be the star witness for House Democrats during hearings on a comprehensive energy and global warming bill that start this week.

Gore, a Nobel Peace Prize co-winner for his work on climate issues, is scheduled to make his third formal appearance Friday on Capitol Hill since losing the 2000 presidential election. He will be joined at the House Energy and Commerce Committee's witness table by former Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia, the co-author of a climate bill that failed last summer to make it through the Senate.

In all, the Energy and Commerce panel is expected to hear from nearly 50 people this week on a major legislative package that is slated for subcommittee markup starting April 28.

House committee members will begin making their opening statements tomorrow afternoon during what essentially is a four-day hearing on a bill that would set up a mandatory cap-and-trade program to curb emissions of greenhouse gases, as well as several other programs.

Each day of hearings will include three panels of witnesses. On Wednesday, three top Obama administration officials -- U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Transportation Secretary Roy LaHood -- will begin the day. They will be followed by a panel of representatives from the U.S. Climate Action Partnership: Charles Holliday, chairman of the DuPont Corp.; Red Cavaney, the senior vice president for government affairs at ConocoPhillips; Jim Rogers, chairman, president and CEO of Duke Energy Corp.; Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council; Meg McDonald, president of the Alcoa Foundation; and David Crane, CEO of NRG Energy.

The final panel Wednesday includes Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association; Mayor John Fetterman of Braddock, Pa.; David Foster, executive director of the Blue Green Alliance; Kevin Knobloch, executive director of the Union of Concerned Scientists; Nathaniel Keohane, director of economic policy and analysis at the Environmental Defense Fund; and Frank Ackerman, an economist at Tufts University.

On Thursday, the committee will begin with Jeff Sterba, chairman and CEO of PNM Resources; Glen English, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association; Mark Crisson of the American Public Power Association; Richard Morgan, representing the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners; Richard Cowart, a director of the regulatory Assistance Project; and Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The second panel includes Rich Wells, vice president at Dow Chemical Co.; Tom Conway, international vice president of the United Steelworkers; Jack McMackin Jr., on behalf of the Energy Intensive Manufacturers' Working Group on Greenhouse Gas Regulation; Trevor Houser, visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics; Elliot Diringer, vice president for international strategies at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change; and C. Douglas Smith, the executive director of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy.

Thursday closes with Howard Gruenspecht, acting administrator of the Energy Information Administration; Dian Grueneich, commissioner at the California Public Utilities Commission; Dan Reicher, director of climate
change and energy initiatives at Google Inc.; James Robo, president and chief operating officer of Florida Power & Light Co.; David Hawkins, director of  NRDC's Climate Center; Gregory Kunkel, vice president of environmental affairs at Tenaska Inc.; Jonathan Briggs, regional director of Hydrogen Energy in North America; and Gene Trisko, attorney for the United Mine Workers of America.

Aside from Gore and Warner, other witnesses for Friday's hearings include Ian Bowles, secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs; Dave McCurdy, president of the
Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers; Alan Reuther, legislative director for the United Auto Workers; Dan Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis; David
Friedman, research director of the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists; David Gardiner, senior adviser to the Energy Future Coalition; Jeffrey Genzer, general counsel to the National Association of State Energy Officials; and Andrew deLaski, executive director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project.

The final panel of the day includes Carl Royal, counsel at Schiff Hardin LLP and former senior vice president and general counsel with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange; Tia Nelson, executive secretary of the Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands; Jon Anda, a professor and carbon financial markets specialist at Duke University; Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies; David Doniger, policy director of NRDC's climate center; and Patricia Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Las Vegas Valley Water District.

Reporter Robin Bravender contributed.

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