Proposed federal rules aimed at promoting clean energy, combating climate change and creating new "green-collar" jobs will be the focus of a policy forum featuring several of the key Washington players who are working to get them approved. Congress will soon be taking up legislation proposed by Chairman Henry A. Waxman of the Energy and Commerce Committee and Chairman Edward J. Markey of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee and Select Committee on Global Warming. The draft legislation, entitled The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), charts a new course toward a clean energy economy that creates jobs, helps end our dangerous dependence on foreign oil, and combats global warming.

The event will feature remarks by U.S. Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee; Carol Browner, the former Environmental Protection Agency administrator who is now President Barack Obama's assistant for energy and climate change; and John Holdren '65, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In addition to the presentations by Markey, Holdren and Browner, the event will include remarks by MIT President Susan Hockfield, MIT Energy Initiative Director Ernest Moniz, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, and will allow time for Q&A.

Session One - Energy and Global Warming: The Scientific and Political Challenges

• Congressman Edward J. Markey, 7th Congressional District of Massachusetts; Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming (Chair); Energy and Commerce (Chair of Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment)
• Dr. John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology; Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy; Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology
• Dr. Susan Hockfield, President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Session Two - Green Energy / Green Jobs

• Dr. Daniel Yergin, Chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, Inc. (CERA)
• Dr. Ernest Moniz, MIT Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems; Director of MIT Energy Initiative

Keynote Address: President Obama’s Energy Independence and Global Warming Agenda

• The Honorable Carol Browner, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change in the Obama Administration

MIT News: MIT to host clean energy policy forum