PRES TO TALK ENERGY

Obama Confers With Energy, Oil Executives on Second-Term Agenda

Roger Runnigen, March 8, 2013 (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)

“President Barack Obama has conferred with more than a dozen oil, natural gas and clean-energy executives, as well as academic advisers, at the White House in advance of an energy-policy speech [March 15 at the Argonne National Laboratory, near Chicago. It was billed as a meeting on Obama’s second term ‘clean energy agenda,’…and coping with climate change]…

“The meeting included Jim Hackett, chairman of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC), the second-biggest U.S. independent oil and natural gas producer by market value; Lew Hay, chairman, NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE), which sells energy from natural gas, wind and nuclear power sources…Alex Laskey, president and co- founder, Opower Inc., a provider of energy-monitoring software…Debra Reed, chief executive officer of Sempra Energy (SRE), a U.S. natural gas distributor; Terry Royer, president and chief executive officer of Winergy Drive Systems Corp., a maker of wind-turbine parts…”

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“…Jeff Shaw, chief executive officer of Southwest Gas Corp. (SWX), a natural gas distributor; Fred Smith, chairman, president and CEO of FedEx Corp. (FDX), operator of the world’s largest cargo airline…Cynthia Warner, chairman and chief executive officer of Sapphire Energy Inc., a producer of fuel from algae…[Shirley Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and former chairwoman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Bill Ritter, a former Colorado governor and clean-energy advocate who’s director of Colorado State University’s Center for New Energy Economy, and Cass Sunstein, now a professor at Harvard Law School and former regulatory adviser at the White House Budget office in Obama’s first term].

“Since Obama took office, domestic oil and gas production has increased annually, energy production from renewable sources such as wind and solar has more than doubled, and emissions of carbon pollution have decreased…The energy talks at the White House covered the role of natural gas in in the U.S. economy, new opportunities for renewable energy such as wind, solar and advanced biofuels, the importance of clean energy research and development, and increasing energy efficiency in homes and businesses…”

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