Energy & Environment: Media Appearances and Press Releases

Flynt Leverett in National Interest Online | Inside Track: Pole Dancing

Communications — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:17:00 -0400

New America in the News:

National Interest Online | Inside Track: Pole Dancing

. . . Next to speak was Flynt Leverett of the New America Foundation, who focused on the economic foundation of the world without the West: developing countries are nationalizing their natural resources and converting them into political leverage, with startling success. Leverett maintained that the dramatic increase in energy prices since 2000 tips the geopolitical scales in the direction of oil-and-gas producing powers. The “strategic consequence” of these developments is a huge redistribution of wealth and economic power. Energy exporters like the GCC states and Russia gain; other beneficiaries include manufacturing powerhouses like China, Germany and Japan. Most ominously, the losers from high energy prices—the United States, Great Britain and the European Union—are ringing up large current-account deficits, putting them at the mercy of China and the energy exporters who finance their fiscal shortfalls.

Like Gvosdev and Weber, Leverett saw a huge disconnect between the foreign-policy rhetoric of the U.S. presidential candidates and the actual situation, going so far as to say that Obama, Clinton and McCain must be talking about “some other planet.” . . .

Terry Tamminen on CNET | Interview on Clean-Tech Industry

Communications — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:24:00 -0400

New America in the News:

CNET | Interview on Clean-Tech Industry

The clean-tech industry of today is in its early stages, about where Microsoft was in 1980, says Terry Tamminen, an adviser at Pegasus Capital Advisors and the former director of California's Environmental Protection Agency. Now a main force behind the state's rise to the top as a climate change policy maker, Tamminen sits down with CNET News.com's Carl-Gustav Linden in Santa Monica, Calif.

Terry Tamminen on NewsHour | Schwarzenegger Adviser Outlines U.S. Oil Addiction

Communications — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:47:00 -0400

New America in the News:

NewsHour | Schwarzenegger Adviser Outlines U.S. Oil Addiction

In the fourth installment of the NewsHour's Costly Crude series, environmentalist and adviser to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Terry Tamminen discusses the shrinking oil supply with Ray Suarez.

Terry Tamminen in Baltimore Sun | 'Pollution Bill Attacked'

Communications — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:57:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Pollution Bill Attacked (The Baltimore Sun)

...Environmentalists, scientists, public health experts and alternative energy companies also pledged their support for the Global Warming Solutions Act during a Senate hearing yesterday. The supporters argue that state limits are necessary to spur federal action and will help to prevent deadly floods and economic chaos brought by climate change. ...

...Former California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Terry Tamminen said costs for most customers and businesses would go down because regulations created by the state would encourage conservation. Tamminen said per capita energy consumption in California dropped 40 percent during the past decade because of its regulations.

Flynt Leverett in The Guardian | 'Axis of Oil'

Communications — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 10:39:00 -0500

New America in the News:
Different Clinton, More Painful Bill (Guardian Unlimited - UK)
Flynt Leverett says in the U.S. magazine National Interest that the U.S. should be seriously concerned about this so-called "axis of oil" because it has the potential to exert the same sort of financial and monetary pressure on the U.S. as Washington put on Britain and France in 1956. "Half a century after Suez, there is growing potential for a coalition of major energy exporters - disproportionately concentrated in the Middle East and Russia - and major manufacturers like China to coordinate the application of financial and monetary pressure on the United States for strategic purposes." ...

Terry Tamminen in The New Zealand Herald on Climate Change

Communications — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:19:00 -0500

New America in the News:

It is individual states and not Washington that will lead the United States response to climate change, says Terry Tamminen, friend and adviser to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"I couldn't agree more that the U.S. has to step up. The good news -- it is already happening," Tamminen said.

The former head of California's Environmental Protection Agency was in Wellington to give the keynote speech to a Chapman Tripp symposium on climate change, and to extend to Prime Minister Helen Clark an invitation for New Zealand to take part in a process he is spearheading -- the creation of an emissions trading market centred in California.

"In June last year there were three states that had any kind of a comprehensive climate plan. Today there are 27 which have them or are developing them. Five have put them into law, which is extremely important because any politician can lay out a plan but if they are put into law you know what you are likely to get."

By 2009 when there was a new President in the White House and a Congress likely to take this issue seriously -- "which the current President and Congress will not" -- most Americans would live in a state with a world-class target for reducing greenhouse gases and a comprehensive and credible plan to achieve that, he said. ...

For the complete article, please follow this link. To see the Climate Policy Program's map of which states have Climate Action Plans completed or in the works, please click here.

Terry Tamminen in Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Green Initatives

Communications — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 06:02:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Energy experts with Glendale-based Johnson Controls Inc. are busy crafting their first proposal aimed at winning a piece of an ambitious $5 billion plan to reduce global warming by retrofitting energy-wasting buildings in 16 of the world's largest cities.

Step one: Houston, one of the country's most polluted cities, where more than 270 buildings could see upgrades.

Meeting in Milwaukee last week, managers and experts from Johnson Controls offices around the country scoured slides of aging boilers and control systems in buildings they had toured in Houston, including fire stations, libraries and the downtown convention center, where the city once housed 5,000 people who fled New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Johnson Controls plans to show how energy use in the buildings can be cut 30% to 50%....

"The message to businesses about global warming is 'Jump in, the water's fine.' This is not something anyone has to be afraid of," said Terry Tamminen, former climate adviser to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. "When it comes to global warming, what we're asking people to do is to put money in their pockets - to pick $100 bills up off the ground."

Energy efficiency and renewable energy are creating jobs for entrepreneurs who have left other work to become home energy-efficiency consultants and solar panel installers...

Terry Tamminen is Director of New America's Climate Policy Program. For the complete article, please visit JSonline.com.

UPI Highlights New America's Solar Energy Event

Communications — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 12:16:00 -0400

New America in the News:

WASHINGTON, June 8 (UPI) -- The potential of solar energy to help solve many of America's energy woes is real, but its success hinges on establishing long-term incentives, industry advocates say.

"The only risk posed by solar is not going forward rapidly," Michael Splinter, chief executive officer of Silicon Valley-based Applied Materials, said this week at a briefing sponsored by the New America Foundation on the potential for the technology to meet global energy demand.

Solar is a viable way to meet much of U.S. and world energy needs -- and to reduce carbon emissions, Splinter said.

Solar represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the 5,000 gigawatts of electricity produced globally each year, Splinter said. The global solar industry is a $15 billion market expected to grow to $50 billion by 2010, he said...

For the complete article, please visit the United Press International website.

For more information on the briefing, please click here.

Financial Times Cites New America Event with Gov. Richardson

Communications — Mon, 21 May 2007 08:54:00 -0400

New America in the News:

It is not often that record high petrol prices prove helpful to American politicians. But with prices now riding at more than $3 a gallon in many parts of the country, voters are listening ever more attentively to how their 2008 presidential contenders will tackle global warming...

Among the Democratic candidates, however, there is intensifying competition to be the most radical global warming candidate. Almost all have signed up to targets of reducing America's carbon emissions by between 60 and 80 per cent by 2050 – in line with what Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, and his colleagues in the western and north-eastern states have proclaimed.

Some, such as Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico and former energy secretary in the Clinton administration, who is running fourth in the Democratic stakes behind Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, argue that those targets are not urgent enough.

"When John F. Kennedy challenged this country to reach the moon, he challenged us to get there in 10 years, not 20 or 30 or 40," he told the New America Foundation think-tank in Washington last week. "I am going to stake my claim to being the next president – the energy president – on the concept of a fast, comprehensive energy revolution..."

For the complete article, please visit the Financial Times website.

Des Moines Register Reports on New America Energy Event

Communications — Fri, 18 May 2007 10:25:00 -0400

New America in the News:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, one of the Democrats seeking the presidency, unveiled a national energy plan Thursday that places a high priority on ethanol and other biofuels produced in Iowa.

"I would say that on a scale of 10, the use and promotion of biofuels and biodiesel and ethanol would be at about a 9.5 level," Richardson said in a conference call with Iowa reporters.

Richardson, who was secretary of energy in the Clinton administration, and his wife Barbara drive a Ford Escape hybrid and a Chevrolet Tahoe flexible-fuel vehicle that can run on E85 ethanol.

Richardson outlined his energy plan in a speech Thursday to the New America Foundation in Washington. He called for dramatically reducing oil consumption and oil imports, increasing the production of renewable energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and working internationally on energy issues...

For the complete article, please visit the Des Moines Register website.

For more information on New America's energy efficiency event, please click here.

New York Times Highlights New America's Energy Efficiency Symposium

Communications — Thu, 17 May 2007 12:11:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Energy saving opportunities in American homes are immense with current technology, but new product standard mandates will be needed, according to a study by the McKinsey Global Institute.

The research group’s study... concludes that projected electricity consumption in residential buildings in the United States in 2020 could be reduced by more than a third if compact fluorescent light bulbs and an array of other high-efficiency options including water heaters, kitchen appliances, room-insulation materials and standby power were adopted across the nation.

The energy saving over that time, if achieved, would be equivalent to the production from 110 new coal-fired 600-megawatt power plants, the researchers estimate. That would result in a significant reduction in the amounts of fossil fuel burned and carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, spewed into the atmosphere...

The McKinsey policy prescriptions resemble the California model. Starting in the 1970s, the state began imposing requirements for appliances and building materials, among other energy-saving measures. A consumer, said Terry Tamminen, a former director of the California Environmental Protection Agency, is not forced to choose between, say, appliances that are power hogs and ones that are energy-efficient.

“Enlightened regulation ensures that all your choices are relatively good ones,” said Mr. Tamminen, now director of the climate program at the New America Foundation, a public policy institute...

The report will be presented at an energy symposium in Washington sponsored by the New America Foundation and the Climate Group, a nonprofit organization. It is available at www.mckinsey.com/mgi.

For the complete article, please visit the New York Times website.

To learn more about New America's energy symposium, please click here.

ABC News on Gov. Richardson, New America Energy Event

Communications — Thu, 17 May 2007 10:31:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson on Thursday laid out his plan for a dramatic shift in the way the U.S. uses energy, proposing to all but end the country's reliance on oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2040.

Invoking President Kennedy's call for the Apollo space program, he said the nation needs a "man-on-the-moon" effort to develop technologies that will cut energy costs and halt global warming.

"I am issuing a call to action, for Congress, the energy industry and the public," he said in a speech to the New America Foundation. "I am calling for a new American revolution an energy and climate revolution."

Richardson's plan encourages people to drive electric and plug-in cars, promotes public transportation and calls for increasing fuel economy standards to 50 miles a gallon by 2020 from about 25 miles per gallon now...

For the complete article, please visit the ABC News website.

For more information on New America's energy efficiency event, please click here.

AP Quotes Gov. Richardson on Energy Efficiency at New America Event

Communications — Thu, 17 May 2007 09:53:00 -0400

New America in the News:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson on Thursday laid out his plan for a dramatic shift in the way the U.S. uses energy, proposing to all but end the country's reliance on oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2040.

Invoking President Kennedy's call for the Apollo space program, he said the nation needs a "man-on-the-moon" effort to develop technologies that will cut energy costs and halt global warming.

"I am issuing a call to action, for Congress, the energy industry and the public," he said in a speech to the New America Foundation. "I am calling for a new American revolution -- an energy and climate revolution..."

For the complete article, please visit The Associated Press website.

To learn more about New America's event, "Is Energy Efficiency the Answer" please click here.

Vanity Fair Names Terry Tamminen 'Eco-Warrior'

Communications — Wed, 02 May 2007 01:57:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Californians have traditionally led the rest of the country toward new modes of behavior and thought. Those pictured here, who come from all walks of life, are joined by their commitment to bringing about a greener world, starting with their own nation-sized state of 36 million...

Since 2003, Terry Tamminen, the author of Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction, has served as Arnold Schwarzenegger's go-to environmental man. After helping to make California the state with the strictest standards in the country as head of its Environmental Protection Agency, he is now spreading the green message nationwide as a lecturer and consultant...

For the complete article, please visit the Vanity Fair website.

Terry Tamminen in TheStreet.com on Emissions Control, Companies

Communications — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 19:48:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Earlier this month, ConocoPhillips the first domestic oil company to join the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a corporate call-to-arms aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions...

Until recently, big business has insisted that emissions reductions be voluntary. What, then, converted these companies into believers in government intervention?

For one thing, companies are realizing they will be affected by some sort of emissions control no matter how much of a fuss they make. Under voluntary controls, little progress toward emissions reduction has been achieved, aside from a handful of hybrid cars cruising clogged highways, feeding on a cocktail of unleaded gasoline spruced with ethanol...

The other factor convincing companies to support federal activism is their fear of the unknown. A host of regulatory options have been introduced that would have widely varying consequences for companies that emit greenhouse gasses...

Companies worry that operating under varying state systems would be impossibly complicated. For example, the automobile sector would have to build cars for the strictest emissions environment, because it couldn't easily build different cars to fit different state rules...

"Businesses are now in the awkward position of seeking federal protection from the states," said Terry Tammimen, director of the Climate Policy Program at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based public policy group...

For the complete article, please visit TheStreet.com website.

Men's Journal Profiles Terry Tamminen

Communications — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 03:45:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Following his victory in the historic 2003 California recall election, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tapped Tamminen, a lifelong Democrat, to run the California EPA. Tamminen, now 55, came recommended via Schwarzenegger's brother-in-law Robert Kennedy Jr., who knew Tamminen from his Riverkeeper-esque battle to clean up industrial pollution in L.A.'s Santa Monica Bay. Before long, Tamminen joined the Austrian Oak's cabinet and became the primary architect of the state's groundbreaking legislation on climate change.

"Terry's a total visionary," says Bonnie Reiss, a political adviser and friend of the Governor. "Positive, high-energy, and action-oriented...just like Arnold." Nor did it hurt their rapport any that Tamminen is bilingual. "They like to speak to each other in German," Reiss says.

"The first time we talked, Arnold told me he wanted to be a leader on global warming," Tamminen recalls. "He felt that California should set an example." Together, they made certain the state has - most notably in the landmark 2006 Assembly Bill 32, which committed the world's seventh largest economy to a 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020...

For the complete article, please visit the Men's Journal website.

Newsweek Credits Terry Tamminen with Schwarzenegger's Green Plan

Communications — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 19:08:00 -0400

New America in the News:

"Pimp My Ride" isn't the sort of television program one watches for a lesson in eco-consciousness. Each week on the MTV reality show, one lucky teenager's old clunker is transformed into an outrageously appointed dream car...For today's episode, "Pimp My Ride" has invited a man who knows a thing or two about muscle. Peering under the crimson and white hood of a pimped-out '65 Chevy Impala, Arnold Schwarzenegger all but caresses the new 800-horsepower engine, which has been overhauled to run on bio-diesel for a special Earth Day episode of the show. "You can have an engine that's fast and furious and still reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 30 to 40 percent," Schwarzenegger declares for the cameras. "This is the future..."

Schwarzenegger traces his green sensibilities to his childhood in postwar Austria, where he grew up with rationed food and electricity--and had to haul bath water from a well...

After marrying Maria, Schwarzenegger soaked up even more environmental activism from her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted environmental lawyer. When Schwarzenegger first ran for office during the 2003 election to recall California Gov. Gray Davis, Kennedy recommended his friend Terry Tamminen, a well-known ocean advocate from Santa Monica, as the campaign's environmental adviser. Tamminen helped the novice candidate craft an environmental-action plan, which included generous subsidies for hydrogen and solar power, as well as the establishment of huge nature conservancies in the Sierras and a ban on offshore drilling...

For the complete article, please visit the Newsweek website.

Australian Broadcasting Corp. Interviews Terry Tamminen on Carbon Trading

Communications — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 18:53:00 -0400

New America in the News:

PETER CAVE: When Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair signed a landmark transatlantic agreement to combat climate change last year, it wasn't with his Iraq War partner, US President George Bush, but with California's Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who runs the world's fifth largest economy.

The Governator has dumbfounded conservationists and conservatives alike with laws to slash greenhouse emissions by 80 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050.

One of the men responsible is the Governor's Special Adviser, Terry Tamminen...

Terry Tamminen spoke to David Mark.

DAVID MARK: Terry Tamminen why has a Republican Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger been the one to lead the way with legislation to combat climate change?

TERRY TAMMINEN: Well I think, first of all it comes from his European background. He's got a much broader perspective than many American leaders or politicians.

Secondly, he's got four kids of his own so he tends to think about things in longer terms and the future. And he wants to leave them a sustainable California.

And I think the last point I'd make is that he sees tremendous opportunity here. This is the chance of solving climate change by developing our renewable energy sources like wind and solar and new technologies.

This is very exciting; it's about building a 21st Century economy.

DAVID MARK: Well you just mentioned renewables, but the suite of legislation goes beyond just energy production in California doesn't it?

TERRY TAMMINEN: Well it does. And of course we're trying to lower all of our greenhouse gas emissions, but really you do that by saving energy in the first instance. I mean you can reduce your greenhouse gases literally overnight by changing out inefficient, incandescent light bulbs for example for compact fluorescents or by putting in more energy-efficient appliance or getting a more energy-efficient car.

And then of course there's longer-term things but all of this is like picking up hundred dollar bills off the sidewalk.

DAVID MARK: There's been an enormous amount of discussion in Australia about the idea of introducing a carbon trading scheme here. Is that focus too narrow?

TERRY TAMMINEN: Well I think if it's the only thing you're talking about it is too narrow. Because remember that emissions come from a lot of different sources, not all of them lend themselves to being closely monitored and then allowing that sort of trading of pollution credits.

So things like the carbon emissions that come from your cars might need some sort of regulation or just get more energy efficiency.

But the major emitters, the smokestacks that you think of the electricity generators and other industries, those do lend themselves to being capped and then allowing trading as a flexible way of complying to get your greenhouse gas reductions...

For the complete article, please visit the Australian Broadcasting Corporation website.

TIME Magazine Quotes Terry Tamminen on Thwarting Climate Change

Communications — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 18:09:00 -0400

New America in the News:

Arnold Schwarzenegger may have signed the world's toughest anti-global-warming law, but it is Democrat Terry Tamminen, his environmental adviser, who is emerging as the state's real Terminator, winning industry support and the endorsement of a Republican Governor for a mandate to reduce the state's emissions 80% by 2050.

But thwarting climate change isn't a solo effort. Tamminen left his official post to build a national response to global warming one state at a time. "I am trying to Johnny Appleseed what California has done," Tamminen says. His goal is to create a de facto national climate plan out of individual efforts in the 50 states. "He is crisscrossing the country and spreading the word," says Karl Hausker, deputy director of the Center for Climate Strategies. "Terry gets state leaders interested in doing this..." Nineteen states have developed or are developing aggressive climate plans based on the work of Hausker's group and Tamminen. So much progress is being made at the state and regional level, Tamminen says, that "by the time that there is a new Administration in the White House, a majority of Americans will live in states with a meaningful plan that deals with the climate-change issue."

For the complete article, please visit the TIME Magazine website.

The New York Times Reviews 'Oil on the Brain' by Lisa Margonelli

Communications — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 14:33:00 -0400

New America in the News:

There’s a lot of stuff we consume while barely pausing to consider where it comes from; it is easy, these days, to be insulated from production. Inquisitive writers profitably explore the knowledge gap: recent work about the life stories of handguns, French fries and Panama hats comes to mind. Tracy Kidder chronicled the creation of a computer in “The Soul of a New Machine,” and last year Michael Pollan traced the sources of our dinners in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” This year comes something new about those obscure practicalities of how does it get here: “Oil on the Brain,” by Lisa Margonelli.

It’s a great subject because oil is at once so familiar (the average American uses about three gallons of gasoline a day) and so obscure — how many of us have any idea where, exactly, our gas comes from, or how it was transformed from crude with a name like “light sweet” to the flammable cocktail we pump into our tanks? What other product is so much a part of our personal lives and so implicated in our foreign policy? As China and India spawn vast middle classes that want to drive cars, and as Hugo Chávez of Venezuela thumbs his nose at his largest customer, the United States, global oil supplies seem more precarious, and their provision more contentious, than ever before.

Margonelli, a fellow at the New America Foundation (and recently a guest columnist for The New York Times on the Web), says she got taken with the subject while in Prudhoe Bay, researching a story on new methods for the cleanup of oil spills. She watched a chemist ignite spilled crude with a baggie of napalm, and heard him expound on oil fields’ “ever-changing stew of complex compounds, endlessly unpredictable and absorbing. He began musing about the components of crude, from the light gassy hydrocarbons to the heavy gooey ones: All of them have distinct personalities.” And she was hooked.

The specialized knowledge of those who deal with oil is mainly what Margonelli sets out to channel in these pages. She traces the chain backward, from a San Francisco gas station near her home to the trucks of a jobber, or oil wholesaler, to a refinery south of Los Angeles, and then to a drilling rig in East Texas. Margonelli intrepidly loiters around the gas station at all hours, climbs aboard a tanker truck making oil deliveries and lucks into an emergency during her visit to the refinery, observing carefully and asking lots of questions when sirens sound and production halts. Her approach is quirky but comprehensive, informal but rigorous: Margonelli has a facility with numbers and an easy way with questions of policy, and the narrative passages here, lightly first-person and often funny, help make accessible the facts of our dependence on oil. Visits to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve near the Gulf of Mexico and the New York Mercantile Exchange round out the American half of the book...

For the complete review please visit The New York Times website.