Carbon emission regulatory regimes are coming soon in response to rising public pressure for action, according to experts from business and academia who spoke at the recent First Annual Conference-Workshop on Business and the Environment in Philadelphia, hosted by the Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (”IGEL”), a new Wharton/Penn initiative.

Once seen as the job of government regulators and non-governmental organizations only, in today’s world we are seeing more and more that the biggest pressures to enact measures against greenhouse gas emissions are coming instead from “the community, banks and insurers,” said Patricia A. Calkins, vice president of environment, health and safety at Xerox, and a moderator one of the sessions. Some companies have been voluntarily making dramatic shifts to reduce their carbon footprint by choosing the more efficient Energy Star-rated products or, in the case of leading global toy maker Mattel, simply rearranging the types of inventories carried by each of its two distribution centers and by so doing, reaping a “huge reduction” in energy use. While cost-benefit analyses may play a part in some of these companies’ motivations, Eric Orts, founding director of IGEL, says that this is not always the case. Consumer pressure and worries about being targeted or labeled as a polluter have been moving companies to act.

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The Congress will spend most of its remaining time before the Memorial Day recess completing its work on the Iraq-Afghanistan Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill, the FY2009 Budget, and a reauthorized Farm Bill. Following the recess, every indication points to the Senate bringing up the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill for debate (whether there are the 60 votes to invoke clouture and have a vote on the bill itself is anyone’s guess).

This week, the following hearings are scheduled:

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Tuesday, May 6

2:00 PM - Aviation and the Environment: Emissions; House Transportation & Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation; 2167 Rayburn House Office Building; webcast.

Wednesday, May 7

9:30 AM - Oversight Hearing on Science & Environmental Regulatory Decisions; Senate Environment & Public Works Subcommittee on Public Sector Solutions to Global Warming, Oversight, and Children’s Health Protection; 406 Dirksen.

Thursday, May 8

9:30 AM - Testimony on the Decision to Restructure the FutureGen,; Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy & Water Development; SD-192 Dirksen.

2:30 PM - Improving the Capacity of U.S. Climate Modeling for Decisionmakers and End-Users; Senate Commerce Committee; location TBA.

2:30 PM - Discussion on EPA’s Draft National Water Program Strategy: Response to Climate Change; free registration for webcast.

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This week the focus of climate change legislation on the Hill will shift from the possibilities surrounding the scheduling of Lieberman-Warner in the Senate, to the agreement between the House and the Senate on a new Farm Bill. The legislative committees with climate change jurisdiction will spend this week on other issues.

On Tuesday, the Select Committee on Climate Change and Energy Independence will hold a hearing on the effect of climate change on the world’s oceans. The hearing is set for 1:30pm, and the witnesses will be Sylvia Earle, National Geographic explorer-in-residence; Vikki Spruill, president and CEO of the Ocean Conservancy; Jane Lubchenco, professor of zoology, Oregon State University; and Joan Kleypas, scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

On Thursday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on the regulation of public power holding companies. The witnesses are set to be Joseph Kelliher, chairman, FERC; Suedeen Kelly, commissioner, FERC; Philip Moeller, commissioner, FERC; Jon Wellinghoff, commissioner, FERC; Marc Spitzer, commissioner, FERC; David Owens, executive vice president, Business Operations, Edison Electric Institute, Mark Gaffigan, director, Energy Projects, Division of Natural Resources and Environment, GAO; Scott Hempling, executive director, National Regulatory Research Institute; and James Kerr, commissioner, North Carolina Utilities Commission.

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Three events this week are likely to be the focus of climate change policy in the Congress. First is the likely unveiling of the much negotiated, and long awaited, 2008 Farm Bill. What is known, from a climate and energy perspective, is that this farm bill will have a larger focus on energy and biofuels than previous iterations. The House and the Senate had substantial differences on biorefinery loan guarantees, renewable energy provisions, and incentive payments to bioenergy producers. Once a bill is released, ClimateIntel will publish a rundown of its most pertinent climate change policies.

On Tuesday, at 10:30 AM, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing on “International Deforestation and Climate Change.” Stewart Eizenstat, a former Clinton Administration official and current partner at Covington and Burling will testify. Also testifying will be Kevin Gurney, the associate director of Purdue University’s Climate Change Research Center; and David Hayes, former deputy secretary of the Interior. Deforestation and forest management are a focus of post-Kyoto climate negotiations.

On Thursday, at 10:00 AM, the Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing examining the tax aspects of an economy wide cap-and-trade system. This will be the first foray into this topic by one of the two tax writing committees, and will help create the revenue blueprint for implementation of any auction of carbon credits. Depending on the level of the cap, the revenue in the initial years of the system could reach into the hundreds of billions of dollars. The witnesses slated to appear are Peter Orzag, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, which published a report in February on “Policy Options for Reducing CO2 Emissions;” Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities; and Henry Derwent, the president and CEO of the International Emissions Trading Association.

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