Efficiency First

Pass a Clean Energy & Security Act in the US Senate Now!

For Immediate Release

Media Contacts:  Fatima Khan / fatimazk@gmail.com / 617-216-7089

Donnie Fowler / dfowler@gmail.com / 415-902-4720

U.S. Clean Tech Business Leaders Call for an

American Clean Energy and Security Act

Washington, DC, September 23, 2009 — On the heels of President Obama’s September 22 speech before the United Nations Climate Change Summit and with Congress debating legislation, sixty-nine private industry executives, investors, and business leaders from the clean technology sector have delivered a letter to the United States Senate calling for swift congressional action on an American Clean Energy & Security Act.

New federal polices will create over a million jobs here at home, help the United States catch up in an increasingly competitive clean tech global market, and wean our nation off its dependence on foreign oil.

“We have a rare opportunity to accelerate the growth of a new economic engine that supports long-term national growth and offers a sustainable path for the future,” said Donnie Fowler, lead organizer of the ACES Act Clean Tech Business Coalition. “Clean technology offers the same economic promise to this country that the transcontinental railroad, the interstate highway system, and the broadband revolution did when they were young industries.”

The signers comprise a wide range of leaders within the clean tech community, from established veterans such as venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and Rhone Resch, CEO of Solar Energy Industry Association, to newer entrepreneurs like Matt Golden of home remodeler Sustainable Spaces and Christian Okonsky of electric motor developer KLD Energy.

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The Letter to the Senate

Senators Reid & McConnell & All US Senators:

We write you as the entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors of the growing clean technology economy to urge your support for an American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act.  As new energy business leaders from across the country, we fully support the legislation’s goals: to create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy.

A New Economic Engine & Jobs at Home.

Only occasionally does Congress have the opportunity to shape a brand new economy and spark long-lasting nationwide growth. The federal government has done it before – by building the transcontinental railroad in the middle of the Civil War, through the Marshall Plan after World War II, and by sparking the broadband Internet revolution in the 1990s. In the midst of the current recession and with billions of private dollars waiting to invest in the clean tech economy,  your vote to pass ACES will free up capital,  generate more than one million new jobs  in every part of the United States (including your home state ), and create a new economic engine.

A Competitive Necessity.

Our competitors are not waiting on us to make the first move, having already adopted national policies and incentives like those in the ACES Act.  China has arguably taken the world lead in green technology while pulling ahead of the U.S. in producing a new generation of cars, exporting solar panels, and increasing wind energy capacity.   Germany and Spain are also outpacing the United States.  We still have advantages, especially in our intellectual property rules and the development of our investor market,  but the U.S. cannot afford to wait any longer.

A National Security Imperative.

Every year, the United States imports two-thirds of our oil from other countries, most of whom do not share our democratic values or our free market sensibilities.  We send more than $250 billion overseas for an oil habit that has sent us to war and left us at the mercy of other nations’ leaders.  This is unacceptable when we have a clear path to keep our jobs and money here at home.

As business leaders in the clean energy economy, we ask respectfully for your decisive support to pass an American Clean Energy and Security Act this year. An ACES Act will create non-outsourceable jobs, serve our national security interests, and keep us competitive in the increasingly challenging international marketplace. It is imperative that our national leaders take action now in order to achieve these benefits and to ensure American leadership on this issue.

Sincerely,

Omar Ahmad

CEO, SynCH Energy, Inc.

Bruce Anderson

CEO, Wilson TurboPower, Inc.

Jared Asch

General Manager, Efficiency First

John Balbach

Founder and Managing Partner, Global Alliances

David Bangs

President, Home Performance Washington

Josh Becker

Founder and General Partner, New Cycle Capital

Yobie Benjamin

Founder, True Carbon Inc.

Ben Bentley

CEO, The LeverEdge, Inc.

Erik Blachford

CEO, TerraPass

Julie Blackwell

Senior Director, Team Earth, Conservation International

Jon Bonanno

Chairman, Principle Power, Inc.

Tobin Booth

CEO, Blue Oak Energy, Inc.

Adam Boucher

Founder, Ethos Fund

Adam Browning

Executive Director, VoteSolar

Warren Byrne

President and CEO, Foresight Wind Energy, Inc.

Bob Cart

Founder and Executive Chairman, GreenVolts, Inc.

Barry Cinnamon

Founder and CEO, Akeena Solar, Inc.

Terry Clark

CEO, Finelite, Inc.

Wade Crowfoot

West Coast Political Director, Environmental Defense Fund

Michael Davis

President, US Pure Water Corporation

Frank deRosa

CEO, NextLight, Inc.

Cisco DeVries

President, Renewable Funding

David Ellington

Managing Partner, Emory Capital Group

Rob Ferber

CEO and Co-Founder, ElectronVault, Inc.

Bob Fishman

President and CEO, Ausra, Inc.

Paul Fox

Principal, CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund

Zach Gentry

Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder, Adura Technology, Inc.

T.J. Glauthier

Chairman, EPV Solar, Inc.

Matt Golden

President, Sustainable Places, Inc.

Harry Hagaman

President, Green Design Systems

Tim Healy

CEO, EnerNOC, Inc.

David Hochschild

Vice President of External Relations, Solaria, Inc.

Danny Kennedy

President, Sungevity, Inc.

Vinod Khosla

Founder, Khosla Ventures

Felix Kramer

Founder, CalCars

Craig Lewis

Founding Principal, RightCycle, Inc.

Richard Lowenthal

CEO, Coulomb Technologies, Inc.

Tim Ludwig

Partner, Ohana Capital

Linda Maepa

Co-Founder and COO, ElectronVault, Inc.

Tom McCalmont

Chair, SolarTech; CEO, Real Goods Solar, Inc.

Ed Murray, Ph.D.

Principal, Clean Tech Consulting

Rex Northen

Executive Director, Clean Tech Open

Genevieve Nowicki

Director of Government Relations, Solar Power Partners

Christian Okonsky

CEO, KLD Energy, Inc.

Fergal O’Moore

Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, OCS Energy, Inc.

Jack Oswald

CEO, SynGest, Inc.

Bruce Pasternack

Venture Partner, CMEA Capital

Sunil Paul

Founder, Spring Ventures

Doug Payne

Executive Director (acting),

SolarTech Consortium

Field Pickering

Managing Director, North America, Cool NRG International

Kim Polese

CEO, SparkSource, Inc.

Melanie Putnam Chief Operating Officer, Green Vehicles, Inc.

Stacey Reineccius

Chairman, Powergetics, Inc.

Rhone Resch

President and CEO, Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA)

Dr. Steffen Rochel

Alan Salzman

CEO, Vantage Point – Venture Partners

Kamran Shamsavari

President and CEO, Xandex, Inc.

Daniel Sherwood

President, 3 Prong Power, Inc.

Karl Simmons

CEO, GridSpeak, Inc.

Aaron Singer

CEO, Pacific Carbon Exchange

Ann Stovel

Vice-President of Business Development and Marketing, Synergy Conscious

Kevin Surace

President and CEO, Serious Materials

Brian Thompson

CEO, Powergetics, Inc.

Jeanne Trombly

Managing Director, Plug In America

Tom Van Dyck, CIMA

Senior Vice President and Financial Consultant, SRI Wealth Management Group and RBC Wealth Management

Robert  Walsh

CEO, Aurora Biofuels, Inc.

Dan Whaley

Founder and CEO, Climos, Inc.

Jason Wolf

North America Business Development Director, Better Place

Jonathan Wolfson

CEO, Solazyme, Inc

Donald Fowler

Founder, Dogpatch Energy Strategies

www.ACESbusinesscoalition.com

SUPPORTING INFORMATION

1.  “The Economic Benefits of Investing in Clean Energy,” Political Economy Research Institute (University of Massachusetts – Amherst) and the Center for American Progress, June 2009, pp.7, 12, 15-20 <www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/06/pdf/peri_report.pdf> (“PERI / CAP Clean Energy Economics Report”); National Venture Capital Association Yearbook 2009, p.38 (the number of clean tech venture deals tripled and the dollars invested increased 7.5 times from 2005 to 2008).

2.  PERI / CAP Clean Energy Economics Report, pp.7, 12, 15-20; see also, “VC Group’s Heesen Says Clean Tech Still Hot,” Reuters, June 2, 2009 (“in the not too distant future this sector will be the largest sector for venture investment”).

3.  PERI / CAP Clean Energy Economics Report, pp.2, 27-34.

4.  Ditto, Appendix 2.

5.   Ditto, pp.40-42.

6.  “Green Power Takes Root in the Chinese Desert,” New York Times, July 2, 2009 (While Congress debates a requirement that American utilities generate more of their power from renewable sources, “China imposed such a requirement almost two years ago.”).

7.  “China’s Clean Revolution II,” The Climate Group, August 2009; “China Racing Ahead of U.S. in Drive to Go Solar,” New York Times, August 25, 2009; “Green Power Takes Root in the Chinese Desert,” New York Times, July 2, 2009 (“China … is investing billions of dollars to remake itself into a green superpower [and will] invest more money in renewable energy and nuclear power between now and 2020 than in coal-fired and oil-fired electricity.”).

8.  “VC Group’s Heesen Says Clean Tech Still Hot,” Reuters, June 2, 2009 (“When you look at the Germans and the Spaniards, particularly in solar energy, they have been very much more advanced that we have”).

9.  “Can Cleantech China Teach the West How to be Green?,” CNN.com, November 2, 2008 (“[O]ne factor that may dampen innovation in China is the country’s weak protection of intellectual property rights. The country also lacks a strong culture of venture capitalists willing to invest in Chinese start-ups that may be trying to develop new clean energy solutions.”).

10. Energy Information Administration, “Crude Oil and Petroleum Imports Top 15 Countries,” May 2009; Robert Wisner, “US Crude Oil Production, Use and Import Trends,” Agriculture Marketing Resource Center, September 2008.

11.  Ditto.