12.11.2007 - 11:59pm ET

Climate change: options and opportunities – Exelon CEO John Rowe, Phil Sharp and Raymond Kopp of Resources for the Future

(CSRwire) December 11, 2007 - Climate change is here to stay. Its impact on the regulatory, political, economic and technological landscape of the energy industry is inevitable.

How are industry captains - including Exelon CEO John Rowe - planning to win in the new world?

Join Restructuring Today - the nation's leading trade journal chronicling ongoing efforts to open competitive energy markets - your colleagues and these energy industry thought leaders on Monday, December 17 from noon to 1:00 PM CST for a live, powerful, engaging and interactive audio discussion on climate change:

• John Rowe is chairman, president and CEO of Exelon Corporation - one of the nation's largest electric utilities with 5.4 million customers and revenues of more than $15 billion. Forbes ranked Exelon as the number-one utility company on its 2005 list of The Best Managed Companies in America and ranked Exelon as the number-one utility company in the US on its 2004 list of The World's 2,000 Leading Companies. Rowe has led electric utilities since 1984 serving as CEO of Central Maine Power Company, the New England Electric System and Unicom Corporation consecutively. He is a lawyer and was the general counsel of Consolidated Rail Corporation and a partner in the firm of Isham, Lincoln and Beale. Rowe's business activities have been marked by his attention to balance sheet strength, earnings consistency, service reliability and environmental performance.

• Phil Sharp is president of Resources for the Future (RFF) -- an independent and nonpartisan research institution. RFF is the oldest Washington think tank devoted exclusively to policy analysis on energy, environmental and natural resource issues. Sharp leads a research and administrative staff of more than 80 people and oversees an institutional endowment of nearly $70 million. Sharp served ten terms as a member of the US House of Representatives from Indiana and a lengthy tenure on the faculty of the John F Kennedy School of Government and the Institute of Politics at Harvard University. Sharp was a driving force behind the Energy Policy Act of 1992 that led to the restructuring of the wholesale electricity market, promoted renewable energy, established more rigorous energy-efficiency standards and encouraged expanded use of alternative fuels. He also helped to develop a critical part of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments providing for a market-based emissions allowance trading system. Sharp was Congressional chair of the National Commission on Energy Policy, a panel established to make energy policy recommendations to the federal government. The commission issued its findings in a major report, Ending the Energy Stalemate: A Bipartisan Strategy to Meet America's Energy Challenges, that has been widely recognized as a comprehensive roadmap for energy policy, including the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Sharp is co-chair of the energy board of the Keystone Center and serves on the board of directors of the Duke Energy Corporation and the Energy Foundation

• Raymond Kopp is senior fellow and director of the climate and technology policy program at Resources for the Future (RFF). He will have just returned from the international conference on global warming in Bali. Kopp specializes in the design of domestic and international polices to combat climate change. He will have just returned from the international conference on global warming in Bali. Kopp has been a member of the research staff and has served in a variety of management positions at RFF for 30 years. Kopp's interest in environmental policy began in the late 1970s when he developed techniques to measure the effect of pollution control regulations on the economic efficiency of steam electric power generation. He then led the first examination of the cost of major US environmental regulations by using an approach that is now widely accepted as state-of-the-art in cost-benefit analysis. During his career Kopp has specialized in the analysis of environmental and natural resource issues with a focus on federal regulatory activity. He is an expert in techniques of assigning value to environmental and natural resources that do not have market prices which is fundamental to cost-benefit analysis and the assessment of damages to natural resources.

• Can human activity change things for the better?
  
  
• How will changes impact the grid?
  
  
• Does America need 145 new nuclear plants as EIA says by 2030?
  
  
• Will legislation now in Congress help or hinder?
  
  
• Should we act now?
  
  
• Is a low-carbon policy realistic?
  
  
• How can the push for non-carbon emitting energy sources create economic opportunity for utilities?

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