A decade ago this Sunday, our country was irrevocably changed. We have seen the impacts of this tragic day on a number of fronts, but perhaps the most overlooked impression is to our national energy security infrastructure. The catastrophic repercussions of events, which stemmed from the tragedies of September 11th, resonate through our collective conscious and have dramatically shifted the way we operate as a nation.
This blog is a repost from Facing South: The Online Magazine for the Institute for Southern Studies. Find the original blog post by Sue Sturgis here. There’s broad agreement among scientists nowadays that global warming is real and caused in large part by human activities like burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests. For example, [...]
It has been a great disappointment but not a surprise to watch the veil of utility regulation pulled back in Florida. The Florida Public Service Commission is the state agency entrusted with regulating Florida’s largest electric utilities. This responsibility requires that they balance the desire of the regulated utilities to maximize their shareholders profit with [...]
The debate for opening up waters to offshore drilling within 10 miles of the Florida coast continues in full fervor. In fact, it is likely that the Florida State Legislature will consider this issue again during a special session next month. You might recall that Florida’s leadership failed to pass a Renewable Portfolio Standard this [...]
Senator Alexander’s recently unveiled “Blueprint for 100 Nuclear Power Plants in 20 years” will neither reduce energy costs nor provide clean energy. The “Blueprint” is part of the GOP’s four-step plan to provide “low-cost clean energy” that completely ignores energy conservation and efficiency. (Even though FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghof recently stated we may not need [...]
It’s been a whirlwind of a year since I accepted the position as SACE’s Tennessee Valley Energy Policy Associate here in Knoxville. So much has happened, both good and bad, that it was difficult to keep up. All in all, however, I’m pleased to report that we’ve taken some significant steps towards achieving the clean-energy [...]
In the run up to the U.S. House of Rpresentatives vote on the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) in June, we asked our supporters and allies to call their members of Congress and urge them to support America’s clean energy future and vote “yes.” We heard from several folks across the Southeast who [...]
With all the talk and focus these days on big picture environmental and global warming issues, people often feel intimidated and powerless – forgetting that small choices can have big impacts. A friend who works for an independent, neighborhood bookstore sent me a link to a humorous video made by the staff of The Regulator [...]
So while I don’t Twitter, I do want to share what I’m doing early this week. I’m attending the Southern Growth Policies Board 37th Annual Conference in Biloxi, Mississippi. The title of the conference is called Southern Energy: Abundant, Affordable and American and is happening in a surreal environment — the Beau Rivage Resort & [...]