Energy Symposium Offers Much Food for Thought

What do you get when you put 8 energy lawyers and experts in a room for 3 plus hours? It may sound like the beginning of a very bad joke but actually it was the catalyst for a very interesting exchange of information and ideas.

For those of us who were there, the 1st ever Symposium on Energy, the Environment and the Law at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland was a very good time. Speakers (in the order of their appearance) included Jason Eisdorfer, Staff Attorney here at CUB; Peter Cogswell, Deputy Chief of Staff and Energy Liaison for Governor Ted Kulongoski; Pamela Lesh, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs & Strategic Planning for Portland General Electric; Eric Redman, Attorney with Seattle firm Heller Ehrman; John Volkmann, General Counsel for the Energy Trust of Oregon; Katharine McDowell, Attorney who often represents PacifiCorp in regulatory cases at the PUC; Jim Deason, Attorney specializing in energy transactions; and Ann Gravatt, Policy Director of Renewable Northwest Project. It was, as Jason noted, an “illustrious panel,” and the conversation, over two days of lunching and listening, ranged from the undeniable fact of global warming to the future of the electricity industry, from customer concerns to career advice for the environmentally-minded law students who formed the majority of the audience (several dozen members of the Energy & Utility Section of the Oregon State Bar also attended).

Preceding the Symposium was a free showing of Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s presentation of the evidence that global warming is real (thanks to Oregon Interfaith Power & Light and The Regeneration Project). Then, the first day of the Symposium, we explored the ways in which the energy industry contributes to global warming and can be redirected to have less of a dire impact on our environment. Jason set the stage by sharing the following quote: “The debate on the complicity of humans in observed and projected climate change is effectively over. As an indication of this, across the nearly 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific articles published between 1993 and 2003 that mention ‘climate change,’ not one questioned the reality of human influence in the phenomenon.” He then queried, “Where do you think this came from, the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council? No, this is a document written by and for members of the insurance industry, subtitled ‘How Insurers Can Proactively and Profitably Manage Climate Change.’ And, folks, when the insurance industry says the debate is over, the debate is over. So the question becomes, where do we go from here?”

Jason showed some slides from Climate Solutions, one of which shows the contribution of various nations to greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming. The United States was, of course, in the lead. He then talked about the fact that fully 40% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted in the U.S. comes from the electricity industry. This figure translates to 10% of all CO2 emissions worldwide. And this means we’ve got to change course and find ways to cut our emissions.

Next up was Peter Cogswell, who talked about the plans and accomplishments of our sitting governor, in the realm of energy efficiency and renewables. The list included one piece we are particularly excited about, the proposal for Oregon to serve 25% of its electrical demand with new renewable sources by the year 2025.

Pamela Lesh took the stage and gave a presentation on what utilities can bring to the table in finding a solution to addressing global warming. She said that utilities bring, in addition to many hard assets found on the balance sheet, many soft assets such as customer interaction, access to capital, and control of the many aspects of energy production. She took a broad historical view of the industry, asserting that during its first 100 years, the electricity industry’s purpose might have been described as “Helping individuals and businesses accomplish their purposes more conveniently.” And it is true that flicking a switch is more convenient than filling the house with candles or gas lamps, turning on the stove a lot easier than building a fire. What if, Lesh posited, the electricity industry’s purpose metamorphasized in the 21st century to “Helping individuals and businesses accomplish their purposes more efficiently”?

Eric Redman is a well-known energy attorney who has been around the industry for 30 years. He now represents Siemens, who is trying to build a West Coast test plant for Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle coal (whew!), better known as IGCC. This technology converts coal into gas, which emits less CO2 when burned, allows for extracting energy twice in the process, and holds the potential for carbon sequestration, actually capturing the carbon and storing it underground, so that less of it is released into the atmosphere.

Tough, intelligent questions were asked after the speakers had finished. One woman asked about the IGCC process: “Shouldn’t we be moving away from fossil fuels altogether and toward renewables?” Redman answered that it was not a renewables vs. IGCC question, that both would be needed to help keep our planet livable. He discussed both the fast industrialization of China (which plans to build at least 60 traditional pulverized coal plants every year for as long as it can), and the work of Robert Socolow, a Princeton professor who claims that we should think in terms of stabilizing carbon emissions in 7 wedges, each wedge equaling 1 billion tons of carbon per year. Redman said we should think of renewables as a wedge, IGCC as a wedge, energy conservation as a wedge, etc. (CUB has not taken a position on building new coal plants using IGCC technology, but we unequivocally oppose any new pulverized coal on Oregon ratepayers’ dollar.)

The second day was more clearly directed at the law students in attendance. Each speaker gave a brief overview of their own career path, the highlights and pitfalls, what to consider if wishing to make environmental change. Some of those tips included: indirect paths can often yield big results, and training in business, engineering or other seemingly unrelated fields can sometimes be just the ticket to helping site a wind farm or write concise legislation supporting renewables; also, you can be impatient for a solution, but the process of change often requires great patience; and finally, adversarial attitudes are often not as effective in getting things done as creating and maintaining good working relationships.

Our thanks go out to the people of Lewis & Clark Law School for being such good hosts to the event, to the Environmental Law Caucus and Student Advocates for Business and Environmental Responsibility for their sponsorship of student lunches, to the Energy & Utility Section of the Bar for its sponsorship of attorney CLE accreditation and attorney lunches, to Alice Bray (CUB’s summer intern) and her fellow students, Sam Gomberg, Alliyah Mirza, and Allison Reed for their many hours of on-campus organizing work. And most of all, we very much appreciate the generosity of our speakers during this symposium, each of whom brought a wealth of knowledge and experience.

We enjoyed the conversations, we learned new things and found new ways to look at some old facts, and we believe that this small group of current and future attorneys will have a greatly enhanced understanding of both the global environmental challenge we face, and the most realistic ways to approach a solution. And that’s no joke.

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