EPA Thumbs Nose at Climate Leaders Program, Corporations

Read the amazing report below from Paul Baier, Vice President of Consulting for Groom Energy Solutions, regarding how the U.S. EPA not only cancelled its acclaimed Climate Leaders Program without explanation but also butchered how it handled the situation.  One wonders what EPA has in mind.  With an increasingly conservative Congress successfully stifling legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, working proactively with more enlightened corporations through incentives and market-driven approaches seemed like an intelligent approach.  What's next, EPA?

I can't paraphrase better than Baier's original prose so I won't.  I'll add one word only: Disgraceful.  Here is the report from Paul Baier:

Dear Colleague,

 Notes from a Stunning EPA Climate Leaders Meeting

The EPA having just unexpectedly cancelled its voluntary carbon reporting program a few weeks ago, held its annual (and last) Climate Leaders meeting this week in New Orleans. Originally scheduled to be a 2.5 day event, it was hastily shortened to 2 half-days. Here are a few of my observations from the meeting.

Al Gore Advocates for Electric Vehicles and Against Ethanol

Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Vice President Al Gore is on tour to promote his new book, Our Choice, which more or less begins where An Inconvenient Truth ended.  While touching on the latest science of global climate change, the book nonetheless focuses on U.S. energy policies, sources and uses and on policy solutions to the climate crisis (a term used not only by this author but also in a consistent manner by Gore).

Opening his November 9 remarks at San Rafael's Dominican University with his trademark self-deprecating humor -- "I'm Al Gore, I used to be the next president of the United States" -- the relaxed and good-humored Tennessean immediately had his audience laughing and applauding.  To be sure, for Gore, speaking to an ideologically compatible and politically sophisticated San Francisco Bay Area audience about global climate change, the only thing missing from the love would be flowers and kisses.