Energy and Environment

Mitch Tyson, Chairman, Advanced Electron Beams and Co-Chair of PBLN's Energy & Environment Working Group

Roger Freeman, Managing Principal, Solventerra and Co-Chair of PBLN's Energy & Environment Working Group

Centered around education and advocacy initiatives on energy and environment issues, we are committed to supporting strategies and policies both within our companies and our society that move us toward a more sustainable future, where we strive to harmonize our activity with our environment in our communities, in our country and throughout the world.

Leadership:

Co-Chair: Mitch Tyson, Former CEO and Chairman, Advanced Electron Beams

Co- Chair: Roger Freeman, Managing Principal, Solventerra and former COO Citizens Energy

Current Focus:

Focus will continue to be on boosting the economy via product innovation, business practices and public policies that drive energy efficiency, increase renewable power generation and price carbon. Additional focus will include Smartgrowth development and expansion of public transportation.

Recent Activity & Accomplishments:

PBLN has received a 2011 grant from the Barr Foundation to explore climate change solutions by bringing business leaders to the table around local and regional opportunities.
PBLN actively supported the Waxman-Markey bill and comprehensive climate change legislation in Congress in 2009-10 and was deeply disappointed that no legislation was passed.
PBLN has actively supported the Cape Wind project as a viable effort to create renewable energy, and has authored written testimony to the MA Department of Public Utilities.
We held a CEO forum on Cape Wind and its partnership with National Grid featuring Cape Wind CEO Jim Gordon, National Grid senior executive Richard Rapp, and Berkshire Partners Managing Partner Carl Ferenbach.
We held a CEO forum featuring Senator Scott Brown (R-MA), EnerNOC CEO Tim Healy, CERES President Mindy Lubber and Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles to discuss federal energy policy and climate change legislation.
We featured the business innovation of Zipcar in a forum with its CEO Scott Griffith and in the same session previewed the Massachusetts job-creating energy and climate strategy.
We held recent forums and meetings with Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Capitol to make the business case for protecting EPA Authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and to reinforce our commitment to a Cap and Trade system and a transition to a clean energy economy.

PBLN Values & Policy Statement:

Values Statement: Progressive business leaders understand that our planet, our society and the economy are inexorably intertwined. The nexus between energy and the environment exemplifies this interdependence. Energy makes our society and economy possible, but the way we currently take, make, use and waste energy is damaging our environment. Simply put, our biosphere is breaking down. We are collectively overwhelming the earth’s natural cyclic processes and capabilities to recycle; regenerate and replenish itself. To restore equilibrium, our society and economy must become sustainable. Accordingly, progressive business leaders are committed to supporting strategies and policies both within our companies and our society that move us toward a more sustainable future, where we strive to harmonize our activity with our environment in our communities, in our country and throughout the world.

Policy Statement: Recognizing the potentially catastrophic threat that global warming and climate change present to our environment, our society and the economy, we, the Progressive Business Leaders Network, support the following policy positions:

We support putting a put a price on carbon emissions, and allowing market forces to raise the price of carbon emitting forms of energy, thus stimulating the necessary shifts in our society and economy
We support policies that anticipate and correct imperfections in that market-based strategy in order to protect workers and small businesses and to facilitate innovation in alternative energy industries
We support the Waxman-Markey bill — American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES Act), H.R. 2454 passed by the US House of Representatives in June 2009 as a baseline for energy legislation and encourage passage of legislation consistent with that bill and the provisions set out below
We support the adoption of comprehensive climate legislation that includes:
1. A cap and trade system for pricing and reducing carbon emissions that reduces USA carbon emissions to meet internationally agreed average per capita emissions for OECD (www.oecd.org) countries by 2050
2. Auction of substantial majority of emissions allowances, with auction proceeds directed to ameliorate the negative impacts of pricing carbon pollution, provide funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects and transition assistance for adversely affected worker; remaining allowances distributed at discretion of executive branch agencies
3. Incentives to stimulate energy innovation and renewable energy, including a national Renewable Portfolio Standard
We support aggressive action by the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate Carbon as a pollutant
We believe that as the leading emitter of Carbon into the Atmosphere, the United States has a moral obligation to take the lead in developing global emissions standards
We support the steps taken by Governor Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts legislature to put Massachusetts at the forefront of state and regional efforts to address global climate change, to support renewable energy, to create “green” jobs and communities, and to build a “cleantech” cluster in Massachusetts to foster innovation and transition to a more sustainable economy