Hill Heat

The Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a Business Meeting to consider the following item: Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute, Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, S. 1733

• Linda Adams, Secretary, California Environmental Protection Agency
• Dave Johnson, Organizing Director, Laborers’ Union Eastern Region, Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA)
• J. Stephan Dolezalek, Managing Director, VantagePoint Venture Partners
• David Hawkins, Director, Climate Center, Natural Resources Defense Council
• Eugene Trisko, Attorney at Law, On behalf of the United Mine Workers of America
• Charlie Smith, President & Chief Executive Officer, CountryMark
• Paul Cicio, Executive Director, Industrial Energy Consumers of America

• John Podesta, President and Chief Executive Officer, Center for American Progress
• Ned Helme, President, Center for Clean Air Policy
• Jonathan Lash, President, World Resources Institute
• Iain Murray, Vice-President for Strategy, Competitive Enterprise Institute

• Sherwood Boehlert, Co-Chair, Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Transportation Policy Project
• William Millar, President, American Public Transportation Association
• Mike McKeever, Executive Director, Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG)
• Barbara J. Windsor, President & Chief Executive Officer, Hahn Transportation, Inc.

This hearing was originally scheduled for October 15.

Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming announced that he will be holding an investigative hearing into the fraudulent letters sent to Congress on clean energy and climate legislation. The Select Committee has now discovered more than a dozen fraudulent letters were sent to several members of Congress as part of an “Astroturf” campaign run by the firm, Bonner & Associates, and contracted by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. This campaign was designed to influence members of Congress on the House-passed Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill.

The hearing will feature some of the central figures in the controversy, including victims of the fraud. The fraudulent letters were staged to appear as if they were sent by groups representing senior citizens, minorities and veterans.

While the hearing will focus on the specific events surrounding this fraud on Congress, the practice of “Astroturf” – corporate-funded activities that create the false appearance of a true grassroots movement – has come to the fore in American political discourse surrounding the debates over health care and energy legislation.

• Jack Bonner, Bonner & Associates
• Steve Miller, President and CEO, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity
• Lisa M. Maatz, Director of Public Policy and Government Relations, American Association of University Women
• Hilary O. Shelton, Director and Senior Vice President for Advocacy and Policy, NAACP Washington Bureau

• Preston Chiaro, Chief Executive Officer, Energy Product Group, Rio Tinto
• John Rowe, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Exelon Corporation
• Dr. Willett Kempton, Professor, Marine Policy, University of Delaware
• Bob Winger, President, International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Local 11
• Fred Krupp, President, Environmental Defense Fund
• Mike Carey, President, Ohio Coal Association
• Bob Stallman, President, American Farm Bureau Federation

• Shari T. Wilson, Secretary, Maryland Department of the Environment
• Ronald E. Young, President, California Association of Sanitation Agencies
• Dr. Peter C. Frumhoff, Chief Scientist, Climate Campaign, Union of Concerned Scientists
• Larry J. Schweiger, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Wildlife Federation
• Fawn Sharp, President, Quinault Indian Nation
• Jim Sims, President and Chief Executive Officer, Western Business Roundtable
• Kenneth P. Green, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute

Witnesses

Panel 1

• Jonathan B. Jarvis, Director, National Park Service, Department of the Interior

• Dr. Reed F. Noss, Davis-Shine Professor of Conservation Biology, University of Central Florida
• Iliff McMahan, Jr., County Mayor, Cocke County, Tennessee
• Dr. Steve Williams, President, Wildlife Management Institute

• David Crane, President and Chief Executive Officer, NRG Energy, Inc.
• Ralph Izzo, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated (PSEG)
• Kevin Law, President and Chief Executive Officer, Long Island Power Authority
• Nathaniel Keohane, Director of Economic Policy and Analysis, Environmental Defense Fund
• Joel Bluestein, Senior Vice President, ICF International
• Barry Hart, Chief Executive Officer, Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives
• Dustin Johnson, Commissioner, South Dakota Public Utilities Commission

• John Warner, United States Senator (Retired)
• Kathleen Hicks, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Forces, United States Department of Defense
• Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn USN (Ret.), Member, Military Advisory Board Center for Naval Analyses
• Major General Robert H. Scales (Ret.), Drew Sloan Fellow, Truman National Security Project
• Lieutenant Colonel James Jay Carafano (Ret.), Deputy Director, Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, Director, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation