The Electric Drive Answer: Transportation Technologies & Policies to End Oil Dependence
The Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA), with support from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, invites you to The Electric Drive Answer: Transportation Technologies & Policies to End Oil Dependence.
During this unique multi-industry panel, EDTA members will detail their latest projects and plans for battery, hybrid, plug-in and fuel cell electric drive vehicles, components and infrastructure. They will also discuss how federal policies can speed the commercialization of clean, efficient electric drive and reduce the role of oil in transportation.
EDTA members from the following companies will participate: Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai Motor Company, Toyota, Southern California Edison, Johnson Controls-Saft Advanced Power Solutions, Electrovaya, EnerDel, Phoenix Motorcars, and Vectrix.
Panelists:- Mike Andrew, Director of Government Affairs and External Communications, HEV Battery Systems Power Solutions, Johnson Controls-Saft Advanced Power Solutions
- Edward B. Cohen, Vice President, Government & Industry Relations, Honda North America
- Dr. Sankar Das Gupta, CEO, Electrovaya (or another representative)
- Daniel J. Elliott, CEO, Phoenix Motorcars
- Charles Gassenheimer, Chairman of the Board, Ener1
- Nancy Gioia, Director of Sustainable Mobility Technologies and Hybrid Vehicle Programs, Ford Motor Company
- Charles Ing, Director, Government Affairs, Toyota
- Andrew J. MacGowan, Executive Chairman, CEO, & President, Vectrix
- William MacLeod, Senior Manager, Government Affairs, Hyundai Motor Company
- Dean Taylor, Technical Specialist, Southern California Edison
- Joseph Trahern, Director Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, General Motors
This event is free and open to everyone. Pre-registration is not required. Please forward this notice. For more information please contact EDTA by visiting www.electricdrive.org or by contacting Jennifer Watts at 202-408-0774×306 or jwatts@electricdrive.org.
About EDTA: The Electric Drive Transportation Association is a trade association representing battery, hybrid and fuel cell electric drive technologies and infrastructure. EDTA’s membership includes major automotive and other equipment manufacturers, electric utilities, technology developers, component suppliers, and government agencies.
EPA Defies Another Subpoena: 'It May Create Erroneous Impressions' 1
Originally posted at the Think Progress Wonk Room.
In continued defiance of Congressional oversight, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has flatly declined to obey a subpoena from the House Committee on Global Warming and Energy Independence. The subpoena for documents relating to the EPA’s refusal to obey the Supreme Court mandate to regulate greenhouse gases was issued by a unanimous, bipartisan vote on April 2, a year after the Supreme Court decision.
On April 11, the EPA requested and received an extension to respond, but today the agency has decided not to turn over the documents:
Whether or not the EPA has “grave concerns” about “erroneous impressions,” a “chilling effect,” and “institutional prerogatives,” these are not legally defensible reasons to defy a Congressional subpoena. In a terse response, Committee chair Ed Markey (D-MA) found the reasoning “unpersuasive.” The letter continues:
Of course, if the EPA simply turned over the documents, it would no longer be under such a “cloud.”
The EPA is also defying the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena for related documents on White House involvement. Both letters of refusal were written by EPA assistant administrator Christopher P. Bliley—who was OMB head Jim Nussle’s chief of staff in Congress.
Warming Law notes this defiance likely triggers contempt of Congress proceedings for EPA administrator Stephen Johnson.
View the full letter: EPA 4-16-08 Subpoena Response (PDF)
Surface transportation and the global economy
- 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
The Department of Energy's FutureGen Program
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
- 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
Nominee To Be EPA's Top Lawyer Embraces Unitary Executive Doctrine
Originally posted at the Think Progress Wonk Room.
In his Senate Environment and Public Works nomination hearing today, David Hill, the Bush nominee for the General Counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), was asked by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) what the EPA Administrator should do “if the President of the United States tells him to do something illegal.”
I believe that the courts have held, Senator, that within the unitary executive the administrator and the EPA, just as with all executive agencies, work for the President and are responsible to the President of the United States.
The “unitary executive” theory is a formerly obscure legal argument that asserts “all executive authority must be in the President’s hands, without exception.” Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is a champion of the doctrine, as is Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, David Addington.
Boxer’s question was not purely hypothetical. The current administrator of the EPA, Stephen L. Johnson, has overruled his staff’s scientific recommendations on global warming regulations and ozone limits – both apparently at the behest of the White House.
Yesterday, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) issued a subpoena to compel the EPA to turn over documents involving communications with the White House.
Hearing transcript:
BOXER: Can you please answer my question? I beg you. You’re a very smart man. I’m not trying to trap you. I’m simply trying to get an answer.Do you believe it is appropriate for the OMB or other White House staff to overrrule the scientific judgment of the EPA Administrator when Congress has explicitly delegated that decision to the administrator?
I’m not talking about consultation having lunch, chit-chatting, having coffee, and exchanging ideas. I’m talking about overruling a decision.
HILL: Ultimately the administrator works for the President of the United States.
BOXER: Doesn’t the Administrator have to carry out the Clean Air Act? What if the President of the United States tells him to do something illegal? You’re saying he has to do that?
HILL: I believe that the courts have held, Senator, that within the unitary executive the administrator and the EPA, just as with all executive agencies, work for the President and are responsible to the President of the United States.
Climate Change: A Challenge for Public Health
- 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
Status of Efforts to Improve Mine Safety and Health
- 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
- 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