Alliance to Save Energy’s 2004 ‘Stars of Energy Efficiency’: Bank of America, Marriott International, BPA/SCE, EEI’s Kuhn, DOE’s Garman, Alliance Founder Sen. Charles Percy

Washington, D.C., December 1, 2004 – The nation’s largest consumer bank, a global lodging company, and two utility companies are the Alliance to Save Energy’s 2004 “Stars of Energy Efficiency,” to be honored at a December 9 black-tie gala and fundraising dinner in the atrium of the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C.

Bank of America, Marriott International, Inc., and Bonneville Power Administration/ Southern California Edison are receiving the Alliance’s top awards. In addition, Edison Electric Institute President Thomas R. Kuhn will receive the Chairman’s Award, and Assistant Secretary of Energy David Garman will receive the Charles H. Percy Award for Public Service. This year, the Alliance also presents its first lifetime achievement award to founder Percy himself.

Alliance Chairman Sen. Byron Dorgan and Jeff Rea, vice president and general manager of Alliance Associate Johns Manville, will chair the Evening with the Stars of Energy Efficiency. Click here for more information.

“This year’s Evening with the Stars of Energy Efficiency will be more special than ever, as we honor the Alliance’s dedicated and visionary founder, Sen. Charles H. Percy, with our first lifetime achievement award,” observed Alliance President Kateri Callahan.

Bank of America will receive the award for its integrated, enterprise-wide commitment to energy conservation and efficiency and for prioritizing initiatives that have an impact on energy and fossil fuel use, consumption and waste, climate change, and biodiversity. Through improved facility management systems, energy efficient signage, innovative lighting solutions, HVAC upgrades, and investments in emerging energy technologies, Bank of America now saves more than 100 million KWH of electric energy consumption annually and is reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80,000 tons per year.

Marriott International, Inc., the first hospitality recipient of an Alliance award, has used energy-saving practices to attain bottom-line improvements. Starting with a top-level commitment, a partnership with Energy Star, and training for all hotel engineers in its own Energy Conservation Program, Marriott has implemented energy-efficiency improvements in more than 90 percent of its 2,800 lodging properties, 19 of which have earned the Energy Star designation.

Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), a power marketing agency of the U.S. Department of Energy, and Southern California Edison (SCE), an investor-owned, publicly-held utility, have successfully promoted energy efficiency as a cost-effective energy resource that contributes to grid reliability. BPA’s energy-efficiency and
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conservation programs helped save more than 925 average megawatts from 1980 to 2003 – about 25 percent of the region’s load growth. BPA also was instrumental in creating the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, the nation’s most effective regional energy-efficiency consortium.

In 25 years of providing energy efficiency programs for its customers, Southern California Edison has done its part to help California hold per capita electricity use virtually constant while the rest of the country experienced growth in per capita usage. From 1998 through 2003, SCE spent $105 million a year on energy-efficiency programs which, over the past five years alone, saved enough energy to equal the output of a 500 MW power plant. For 2004 and 2005, SCE increased its energy efficiency funding to $170 million a year, and the company is planning to do even more. SCE recently filed plans to increase the company’s energy-efficiency funding to an average of $245 million a year beginning in 2006, making energy efficiency the first priority resource in SCE’s long-term resource procurement plan.

The Alliance is bestowing its first Lifetime Achievement Award on Alliance founder Sen. Charles H. Percy who, more than 30 years ago, recognized that energy efficiency is the quickest, cheapest, cleanest way to meet America’s growing energy demand. His vision was embodied in the Alliance to Save Energy – a bipartisan, strategic alliance among government, industry, and the nonprofit sector to develop and deploy energy-saving technologies, advocate for public policies advancing energy efficiency, and educate key audiences about the benefits of this important energy resource.

The recipient of the Chairman’s Award, selected by the Alliance Chair Sen. Byron Dorgan, is veteran Alliance Board of Directors member Tom Kuhn, president of Edison Electric Institute (EEI). Kuhn has long encouraged the power industry’s support for energy efficiency. During the past decade, electric utility conservation programs have helped reduce demand by the equivalent annual electric usage of 52 million typical American homes. Kuhn has also worked tirelessly to promote utility industry outreach efforts to low-income customers, and the power industry stands ready with over 800 programs to help the country’s low-income customers this winter. Kuhn and the nation’s electric utilities understand that both conservation and low-income assistance are part of the comprehensive energy solution that the nation needs now.

Assistant Secretary of Energy David Garman, recipient of this year’s Charles H. Percy Award for Public Service, has been a tireless and effective advocate for energy efficiency. In testimony before Congress on at least 30 occasions, and before the public during hundreds of speeches and media appearances, Garman has become the federal government’s leading advocate for energy efficiency. Garman is also recognized for his role in developing FreedomCAR and the President’s Hydrogen Initiative, for partnering with the Alliance on the Powerful $avings consumer education campaign, and for his sweeping transformation of the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy – a transformation that has garnered praise from the National Academy of Public Administration and was highlighted in Government Executive magazine.

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The Alliance to Save Energy is a coalition of prominent business, government, environmental, and consumer leaders who promote the efficient and clean use of energy worldwide to benefit consumers, the environment, economy, and national security.