Energy & Environment: Markey Wants Answers on Rare Earths
• Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., "is pressing the Obama administration for information about alleged Chinese restrictions on the export of rare earth minerals used in defense and energy technologies, warning of threats to U.S. interests," The Hill reports.
• "Three months after BP capped its runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico, the state of Louisiana is still building a chain of sand berms off its coast to block and capture oil even as federal officials and many scientists argue that the effort will prove pointless," the New York Times reports.
• An Idaho couple has "sued the state to stop the shipments by Imperial Oil and ConocoPhillips" to an oil sands site in Canada, "arguing that the" truck loads delivered there "would threaten the integrity of Idaho's historic portion of U.S. 12, as well as the safety of communities that depend on it as the main road in and out of the area," the Times also reports. "National environmental groups and climate change activists are supporting their efforts, seeing a broader opportunity to stall development of Canada's oil sands, which they denounce as a dirty source of energy. "
• "Combating climate change has long taken a back seat to coal production in West Virginia, but in the hard-fought House race in this state's 1st district, global warming hasn't even made it onto the bus," The Hill reports. "In interviews on Thursday, both the Democratic and Republican nominees for Congress voiced skepticism of the science behind global warming, and the Republican, David McKinley, flatly called concerns about climate change 'an attack on coal.'"
Contributor
Robert J. Shapiro
Biography provided by participant
Dr. Robert J. Shapiro is the chairman and co-founder of Sonecon, LLC, a private firm that provides advice and analysis to senior executives and officials of U.S. and foreign businesses, governments, and non-profit organizations. Shapiro has advised, among others, U.S. President Bill Clinton, U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Jr., and British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown; private firms such as Amgen, AT&T, Cisco, Google, Gilead Sciences, NASDAQ, and Fujitsu of Japan; and non-profit organizations including the American Public Transportation Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He is also a Senior Policy Fellow of the Georgetown University Center for Business and Public Policy, chairman of the U.S. Climate Task Force, director of the Globalization Initiative at NDN, co-chair of American Task Force Argentina, and a director of the Ax:son-Johnson Foundation in Sweden.
Before establishing Sonecon, Shapiro was the Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs from 1997 to 2001. In that position, he directed economic policy for the U.S. Commerce Department and oversaw the Nation's major statistical agencies. Prior to that appointment, he was co-founder and Vice President of the Progressive Policy Institute and the Progressive Foundation. He was the principal economic advisor to Bill Clinton in his 1991-1992 campaign and a senior economic advisor to Vice President Gore and Senator John Kerry in their presidential campaigns. In the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, he advised the campaign and transition of Barack Obama. Shapiro also served as Legislative Director and Economic Counsel for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Associate Editor of U.S. News & World Report. He has been a Fellow of Harvard University, the Brookings Institution, and the National Bureau of Economic Research. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from Harvard University, a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an A.B. from the University of Chicago. Shapiro is widely published and most recently is the author of Futurecast: How Superpowers, Populations and Globalization Will Change the Way You Live and Work (St. Martin's Press, 2008).
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