KNOXVILLE – The Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will host a one-day conference on Thursday, Oct. 29, to study the next generation of environmental legislation that builds upon the Clean Air Act.
The conference, titled “Environmental Policy’s New Horizon: From the Clean Air Act to Greenhouse Gas Regulations,” begins at 8:30 a.m. and will conclude at 4 p.m. Free and open to the public, it will be held in the Toyota Auditorium in the Baker Center, 1640 Cumberland Ave., on the UT campus.
Reservations are required only for attendees who want to each lunch at the event. To reserve a lunch spot, call (865) 974-0931. Parking is available in the University Center Parking Garage on Phillip Fulmer Way and parking tickets will be validated at the conference.
“Given Sen. Baker’s role in the enactment of the landmark Clean Air Act Extension of 1970, it is fitting for the Baker Center to host a conference examining the application of the Clean Air Act to the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and to examine the policy implications of proposed cap-and-trade legislation,” said Carl Pierce, interim director of the Baker Center.
Sen. Baker will attend the event and introduce the keynote lunchtime speaker, Joe Hoagland, vice president for environmental science, technology and policy at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
Panelists and speakers at the event will include:
- Milton Russell, senior fellow at UT’s Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment;
- Dean Rivkin, distinguished professor at UT’s College of Law;
- Jerry Paul, the Baker Center’s National Energy Fellow;
- Robert Bohm, economics professor at UT;
- John Myers, senior manager for environmental strategy and management environmental stewardship and policy at TVA;
- David Greene, corporate fellow at the Center for Transportation Analysis,
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL);
- William Fox, professor and director at UT’s Center for Business and Economic Research;
- Dana Christensen, associate laboratory director, Energy and Environmental Sciences Directorate, ORNL;
- Jeff Bielicki, Weinberg Fellow, ORNL;
- Melissa Lapsa, leader for whole building and community integration, ORNL;
- Belinda Thornton, general manager for power and renewable origination, TVA;
- William Fulkerson, senior fellow at UT’s Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment.
The Clean Air Act was developed to protect human health and the environment from emissions that pollute the air. It required the Environmental Protection Agency to establish minimal national standards for air quality. In April 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA does have authority to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act and must decide if emissions from mobile sources endanger public health or welfare.
In April 2009, the EPA proposed a finding that GHGs do endanger public health and welfare and that GHGs from new automobiles contribute to that endangerment. This Supreme Court ruling and the EPA’s subsequent endangerment finding clearly link the Clean Air Act with efforts to reduce GHG emissions, which is the major focus of cap-and-trade legislative proposals.
For more about this event, visit http://bakercenter.utk.edu/main/event.php?key=205&commid.
The Baker Center, which opened at UT in 2003, develops programs and promotes research to further the public’s knowledge of our system of governance, and to highlight the critical importance of public service, a hallmark of Sen. Baker’s career.
The Baker Center’s facility includes a museum that tells the story of how government works using Sen. Baker’s life as a backdrop. It also houses the Modern Political Archives, which hold more than 200 collections of political papers from prominent Tennessee leaders.
For more about the Baker Center, see http://www.bakercenter.utk.edu.
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C O N T A C T :
Amy Blakely, (865-974-5034, ablakely@tennessee.edu)