New Nonpartisan Coalition Launches Presidential Climate Action Plan

Comprehensive Global Warming Blueprint for New Administration's First 100
 Days Challenges All Presidential Candidates to Adopt Bold Climate Change
                                 Platform

   DENVER, Dec. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A team of experts led by the
University of Colorado today released a detailed plan for the next
President of the United States to assert bold leadership on global warming
within 100 days of taking office.

   The document, called the Presidential Climate Action Plan or PCAP, is
the most comprehensive -- and in many respects, the boldest -- plan for
national climate action yet put forth to the American people and the
presidential candidates.

   "As most Americans now realize, global climate change is very real,"
said retired U.S. Sen. Gary Hart, co-chair of the PCAP National Advisory
Committee. "It is caused largely by the fossil fuels we burn for energy.
The national discussion today is not about if we should reduce greenhouse
gas emissions; it is about how much and how fast."

   "PCAP is the first action agenda that focuses clearly on those first
days of the new Administration, when the people of the United States and
the world will be watching for signs of substantive U.S. leadership," Hart
said.

   The project team has contacted each of the presidential candidates with
an offer to brief them on PCAP, Hart said. "This is a nonpartisan project
and a nonpartisan plan," he said. "Climate change is an economic issue, a
national security issue, a public health issue and an environmental issue.
It should not be a political issue."

   "It is critical that all of the presidential candidates address not
only what they will do about global warming, but when they will do it,"
said noted green industrialist Ray Anderson, the founder and chairman of
Interface Inc. of Atlanta, and co-chair of the PCAP Advisory Committee with
Hart. "The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change is only the latest warning that we must act quickly to slow and
reverse the nation's greenhouse gas emissions."

   PCAP's project team, led by former U.S. Department of Energy official
William Becker, is headquartered at the University of Colorado Denver
School of Public Affairs. The project is funded with grants from
foundations and individuals.

   Among the organizations contributing substantial research for the plan
were the Center for Energy and Environmental Security at the University of
Colorado Boulder Law School; the Center for Neighborhood Technology in
Chicago; the Alliance to Save Energy in Washington, D.C.; and Natural
Capitalism Solutions Inc. in Boulder. The project also drew on action items
proposed during five expert summits organized by Becker and the Johnson
Foundation over the past two years.

   The PCAP document maintains that climate action and greater energy
independence are two critical steps toward the larger goal of building a
new U.S. economy that works in the 21st Century.

   "We need a new economy that delivers security, opportunity and
stewardship," Anderson said. "PCAP offers the beginning of a unifying
vision of how to achieve lasting security, new economic opportunity and
stewardship of the Earth."

   Also participating in the announcement was Prof. David Orr, a noted
environmental author, the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of
Environmental Studies at Oberlin College in Ohio, and the person who
proposed the PCAP project.

   "A growing number of candidates and organizations are putting out
terrific, innovative plans to stop global warming," Orr noted. "We hope
this plan sets a higher standard and a clearer agenda for what the federal
government can and must do. We also hope it will set the stage for greater
collaboration among the many groups working on climate policy. It will be
important to offer the 44th President a climate action agenda that he or
she knows has broad support."

   PCAP consists of more than 300 specific recommendations for changes in
federal policies, programs and laws, across more than 13 topical areas --
including energy policy, national security, economic development, natural
resource stewardship, public health, transportation and local adaptation.
The body of proposals is designed to ignite innovation, mobilize national
action, focus federal resources on slowing and reversing global warming,
and put the United States back in the forefront of world environmental
leadership

   Becker said the plan issued today will be updated and improved over the
next several months as new science, policy ideas and Congressional action
emerge. The final PCAP will be provided to the candidates and the public in
September 2008.

   Meantime, the University will release several additional documents in
months to come, including a legal analysis of the president's authorities
to act without further Congressional approval.



   PCAP calls for:

   -- Reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2020 and
      90 percent by 2050, compared to 2010
   -- Raising car and truck fuel economy to 50 mpg by 2020 and 200 mpg by
      2050
   -- Establishing a cap-and-auction system to set a market-driven price on
      carbon emissions and using the revenues to help those least able to
      cope with climate change
   -- Achieving carbon-neutrality in all new buildings by 2030
   -- Immediately ending federal subsidies for fossil and nuclear energy and
      redirecting other "perverse" subsidies that encourage the emission of
      greenhouse gases, using the funds to increase research on low- and
      no-carbon fuels
   -- Dramatically reducing U.S. oil consumption toward the goal of virtually
      eliminating oil imports by mid-century, with the objective of
      preventing international conflicts and terrorism
   -- Making the federal government a carbon-neutral enterprise
   -- Creating a rural renaissance as farms and rural communities become the
      nation's principal energy supplier
   -- Dramatically increasing federal funds to weatherize the homes of
      low-income families
   -- Providing $1 billion in "golden carrot" innovation awards over five
      years to encourage technology breakthroughs
   -- Allocating $1 billion yearly to states and localities that adopt
      policies that help the nation meet its carbon-reduction and
      energy-security goals
   -- Setting national goals for renewable energy use and energy efficiency
   -- Restoring federal funding for earth sciences and improving research on
      the likely local impacts of global warming
   -- Appointing  America's most talented and knowledgeable climate change
      experts to key positions in the federal government
   -- Reforming international development and trade policy to stop
      subsidizing carbon-intensive energy, in favor of investments in energy
      efficiency and clean energy projects in developing nations
   -- Creating millions of new green jobs economy wide, and establishing a
      program of voluntary training and service for disadvantaged young
      people.

   The full Presidential Climate Action Plan can be found on the project's
web site (http://www.climateactionproject.com), along with a number of
other resources designed to help the presidential candidates build their
platforms on climate change. Those resources include a directory of many of
the nation's top climate science and policy experts, a searchable data base
of more than 1,000 policy options, and a collection of white papers and
studies.

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