The meeting was carried on live feeds via the White House’s Web site and through Facebook, where a live chat was conducted and used to provide real-time questions for the panel.
The main topic of the forum was renewable energy development on public lands, and that industry’s potential to create jobs, as well as a panel discussion on the department’s Renewable Energy and Climate Change Agenda.
"At Interior, we manage one-fifth of the nation’s land mass and 1.7 billion acres of ocean off our coasts, including many of the best locations for large-scale renewable energy projects," Salazar said. "We are also the department that is – and will be for years to come – on the front lines of our nation’s response to the impacts of climate change on our land, water, wildlife, and tribal resources."
About 164 stakeholders from as far north as Alaska and as far south as Texas and Alabama attended the forum. Representing a broad-based network of organizations and institutions, including sportsmen and women, business leaders, conservationists, and Indian Country officials, the stakeholders engaged top administration and Interior Department officials in a discussion about the need for a comprehensive energy plan that reduces U.S. dependence on foreign oil, creates jobs, and reduces the carbon pollution that causes climate change.
“When has America succeeded by NOT leading?” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina asked the crowd as he kicked off the afternoon’s session. “If we pass this (climate change) legislation, America will be a leader again … One of the best things we can do for the economy is passing comprehensive climate change law,” he said.
Later speakers described the struggle to pass the law as being a choice between a carrot and a stick. The stick is the possibility that, if no climate change law is passed, the administration will direct the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases. Imposed regulations are likely to be tougher, and won’t include the job protections and investment incentives that are being proposed in the climate bill.
The carrot is the chance to reduce the United States’ $800 million a day dependency on foreign oil by increasing domestic energy production including nuclear power, investing in clean energy technology that will provide millions of jobs and allow the U.S. to “become the Saudi Arabia of clean coal.”
According to an Oct. 10 editorial in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opinion/11kerrygraham.html ) by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that was referred to frequently during the forum, such legislation would also provide economic protections such as a border tax on items produced in countries that avoid environmental standards, as well as the establishment of a floor and ceiling for the cost of emission allowances to safeguard businesses and ultimately consumers, from increases in energy prices.
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