Letter from the President's Desk: Creating an Energy-Efficient World for the Next Generation

Today, I write to you from Long Beach, California, where I just spoke at our seventh annual Green Campus Summit. The summit brought together more than 150 people – students, teachers and energy efficiency experts – who are connected to the important work that the Alliance is catalyzing at university campuses across the state of California. I was thrilled to address this important forum designed to inspire our young people to not only save energy on their college campuses, but also prepare them for careers in energy efficiency and other parts of the emerging clean energy economy.

Since the Green Campus Program began seven years ago, we have graduated more than 50 Green Campus interns to jobs in the energy efficiency arena, and we are proud that three of these interns have become full-time employees of the Alliance! If you would like to get involved in the program and/or have job openings that you would like to fill with the stellar students coming up through the Green Camus training ground, get in touch with Jo Tiffany (jtiffany@ase.org), who runs the program for us.

And, as I mentioned in my letter to you last week, all of us at the Alliance were encouraged, greatly, to hear President Obama recommit to increased investment in energy efficiency even as he and his team prepare to put forward very significant budget cuts in other parts of the federal budget request that will go to Congress in mid-February. I believe our work to protect and increase funding to the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency’s programs related to energy efficiency is monumental given the current state of the economy and the mood of Congress.

Moreover, having the president as our ardent and vocal champion greatly enhances our prospects for success. We at the Alliance are buoyed by this leadership and we stand ready to urge Congress to translate Obama’s request for a doubling in the budget for energy efficiency into concrete appropriations to the key programs of interest to the Alliance and efficiency advocates everywhere.

You can help us ensure significant progress this year in our drive to make this the decade of energy efficiency through two key actions:

• First, register online for the Associates Annual Membership Meeting, which will take place on February 15, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., on Capitol Hill. At this luncheon, we will discuss ways to take advantage of your membership in 2011. And please join us the next day, February 16, for the 2011 Great Energy Efficiency Day! Along with keynote addresses from key members of Congress and administration officials, four panels of stellar speakers will discuss energy efficiency legislation opportunities related to new jobs, building codes, industry, appliance labeling and more.
• Second, as we look forward to a full year working with the new Congress at home, as well as new challenges and opportunities worldwide, I urge you to consider the opportunity to attend our Energy Efficiency Global Forum (EE Global), which is “the” event for the world’s energy efficiency sector. At EE Global, people with a passion for energy efficiency will come together from all over the world to share best practices, policies and programs; to build new partnerships; and to find the solutions for overcoming today’s barriers to the full and widespread deployment of energy efficiency across all sectors and around the world. Please do join us for this most important and most informative event!

In the meantime, I hope you all are surviving this record-shattering winter, and that the New Year is bringing you many good things.

Best,