I will be shortly on a plane to D.C. where I will participate in the Energy Information Administration’s 2009 Energy Conference. I will update as I can via Twitter (RRapier) and possibly on Facebook, but not much from me here for the week.
Here is the opening lineup:
Welcome – Howard Gruenspecht, Acting Administrator, Energy Information Administration
Keynote Address – Dr. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy
Energy and the Macroeconomy – William D. Nordhaus, Sterling Professor of Economics, Yale University
Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World – John W. Rowe, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Exelon Corporation
My panel session is on Wednesday at 9:00:
Energy and the Media
Moderator: John Anderson (Resources for the Future)
Speakers:
* Barbara Hagenbaugh (USA Today)
* Steven Mufson (Washington Post)
* Eric Pooley (Harvard University)
* Robert Rapier (R-SQUARED Energy Blog)
Probably the only time those four institutions will ever been mentioned together. 🙂 I will summarize the high points upon my return.
Going to show Chu Dave Cohen’s article if you have the chance? He should be thick-skinned enough to take a little heat.
The Center For American Progress certainly made an impression at the conference. In retrospect, perhaps your panel ought to have spoken a bit on how to weight the various opinions of technical people, educated laypeople, and people who have nothing but a great deal of anger and a partisan position.
So what did the Center for American Progress do?
Aside from mistaking the “Question and Answer” period for the “lengthy not on point Assertion” period, their representative’s most notable contribution was to ask the one Republican staffer a variation on “Since you’re evil, why should we listen to you?”
Wow, how inappropriate.
Who showed up from CAP and who was their target?
I had a bit of a run in with them in the past and found them to be bullys. They immediately went ad hominem. Never even tried to address the substance of the issue we were discussing.
Brad Johnson from CAP, he was displeased with Mufson from the Post because of the editorial section, and with Andrea Spring for being of the wrong party.
Ah, the George Will editorial. I couldn’t remember exactly what Brad’s complaint was, but that jogs my memory. I just remember that he said if the EIA projections were correct and we were still 80% dependent on oil in 2030 we will have failed.
RR
Yes, I've heard about the George Will dustup. It seems that for a theory that supposedly has all this science behind it Center for American Progress and Brad Johnson have really thin skin.
Andrea is a staffer on on En & Comm. I've met her and havea worked with a number of the former staff members. Can't imagine what she might have done to attract Johnson's ire. Other than Johnson is an A$$.