As the sign waiving, chanting, political sloganeering that accompanies political conventions these days was occurring in Denver, just down the street in the Denver Center for Performing Arts, former senior advisors to President Bill Clinton, U.S. senators, industry leaders and journalists gathered for a more serious discussion.

In stark contrast to the pageantry of the convention, a forum dubbed “Energy & Climate Change” was taking place as part of a series of meetings named the Rocky Mountain Roundtable.  The country’s top Democratic leaders sat with industry CEO’s and environmental activists to discuss the rising cost of energy and global warming.

First up was a session moderated by the Time Magazine’s managing editor, Rick Stengel, and included President Clinton’s former White House Chief of Staff, John Podesta, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Professor Dan Sperling from UC Davis and others.

While the group argued the relative importance of having an advocate in the White House versus controlling the Congress, John Podesta, former White House Chief of Staff to President Clinton, contributed, “When I was in the White House the U.S. produced 44 percent of the world’s solar [energy] and now its only 9 percent.” He seemed anxious to show that despite the control of Congress by Democrats, the U.S. has lost its leadership in innovating alternative source of energy.

Navin Nayak, who directs the League of Conservation Voter’s global warming project, argued that it took President Bush six years in office before recognizing the importance of global warming.  Despite attempts to discuss climate, the conversation kept leading back to the high price of gasoline.

Frances Beinecke, President of the National Resource Defense Council, told the group, “We are having the wrong conversation.” She argued the group was talking too much about energy and not enough about climate change.

Professor Dan Sperling, who teaches at UC Davis and is an expert in transportation, added, “I need to jump in here.  I am from California and I was introduced as a professor but I am also on the California Air Resource Board”

“From pet rocks and so on California has done a lot of innovation and even though we still don’t have a budget but we do have an energy policy in California.” Sperling continued to hold-up California as an example where the executive and legislature are controlled by different parties.  He told the group they were relying too heavily on “policy” questions when it is really the grassroots support that is needed for change.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar told the group her state of Minnesota already has the grassroots support and emphasized the importance of getting state elected officials onboard.

Podesta responded, “California is a great example of that since the 1970s.”

Proposed Solutions
The moderator then encouraged the participants to stop talking about solutions from the “30,000 foot level” and asked for specifics.

Podesta responded with a list, “First we need national fuel efficiency levels, secondly renewable energy investments third is decoupling and fourth..” he explained the massive buying power of the federal government’s own energy consumption should be leveraged towards non-traditional sources.

Nayak suggested a 100 miles per gallon mandate for all automobiles manufactured in the United States and a number of participants and people in the audience applauded.

Professor Sperling put the blame back on Congress saying the fuel efficiency standards are a “joke” and an “embarrassment.” He argued the 27.5 miles per gallon objective that was recently raised had been the same since the 1980s.  He went to say, “California, without going into the politics of this, created a better standard that the Bush Administration rejected but 15 other states adopted.” He concluded by calling for a massive transformation in the country’s transportation system.

As the discussion turned back to the question of energy conservation and behavior modification, Sperling stated, “As a homeowner I look around and see so many ways I could save energy but I am busy…if someone could just tell me what to do I would.” He went on to explain that Wal-Mart and other businesses are wasting lots of energy because their energy usage is not being regulated at the local or state level.

Another panelist told the group to compare Americans with any other group of people in the world and you will find Americans waste too much energy.  Google’s representative, Dan Reicher, distanced himself from comments he felt were harking back to the 1970s arguments regarding scarcity and conservation.

Conservation Vs. Efficiency

Reicher argued there is a difference between conservation and efficiency.  “Putting a sweater on and turning the lights down is conservation but doing more with less is efficiency.” He suggested the solution lies in more efficiency and not energy conservation alone.

Sperling said, “Let me support that.” He went on to explain the benefits of behavior modification by Prius owners by providing a gage that indicates fuel economy as they drive.  He said this gage alone has altered the way people drive thus saving energy through better consumption habits. 

Sperling complained, “The oil companies have been making record profits and last year used 40 percent to buy back their stock.” He believed that the federal government should have mandated some percent of profits by oil companies should be spent developing alternative energy sources.

A private company executive, Dan Hendrix, who earlier impressed the panel by saying his company, Interface Inc., is completely off the energy grid and energy self-sufficient, asked a question of the moderator.  He asked whether “global carbon standards” can even be realized “within my lifetime?”

Sen. Klobuchar responded emphatically, “in your lifetime?  Absolutely.”

Corn Based Ethanol Trashed
Finally the moderator asked the panel to address the efficacy of some alternative fuel solutions that may require as much energy to produce as they create.”

The first response was “It depends on what bio fuel for what purpose.  Ethanol, for example, pushes corn growers to grow more corn thus..” the price competes with food and both go up removing any efficiency in corn based fuels.

Podesta argued that a standard needs to be created that measures both the efficiency of the fuel source but also the carbon output in the equation.  Sen. Klobuchar hedge a little by agreeing that corn based ethanol has little value but said “I don’t want to pull the rug out from under an infant industry but we need to get away from corn based ethanol.”

Sperling interjected that standards for evaluating the relative value of various alternative fuels has already been created in California relative to both their cost to produce and impact on the environment.  He added that “corn ethanol is not a good option.”

Reicher, the Google representative, was the only one to defend corn ethanol but did so in round about way.  He first disclosed that Google owns various ethanol refineries in the Midwest before saying, “it was a good chance to try bio-fuels” and said the country has learned a lot from the experience.  He concluded “cellulose ethanol is where we need to go.”