Green Revolution, Green Jobs Central to National Clean Energy Summit 2.0

Hosting his second annual all-star gathering of clean energy proponents at University of Nevada, Las Vegas on Monday, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada called for "a new revolution ... a clean energy revolution" to restore American prosperity and global leadership.

Comparing the National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 to the original American Revolution, Reid told participants why the date of the meeting, August 10, is important to him.

"It was on August 10, 1776 the word reached London that the Americans had drafted the Declaration of Independence. The Revolution that followed set our nation and the world, but especially our nation, on a long journey towards prosperity and global leadership," said Reid.

"Today, August 10th here in Las Vegas we're firing the first shots of a new revolution to regain that prosperity and restore that leadership: a clean energy revolution that will create millions of jobs across America and thousands of jobs right here in Nevada," he said.

Former President Bill Clinton, left, and Senator Harry Reid at the National Clean Energy Summit. (Photo courtesy Center for American Progress Action Fund, CAPAF)

Reid hosted high-powered guests former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore; the current Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis; the Assistant Energy Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Cathy Zoi; as well as Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington; Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; United Nations Foundation President Tim Wirth; billionaire energy executive T. Boone Pickens and John Podesta, who heads the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Podesta said he hopes that ideas engendered at the summit will enhance this fall's Congressional debate on clean energy and global warming reduction. The House passed the Waxman-Markey clean energy bill earlier this year, and Senate is expected to tackle legislation after Labor Day.

"We've learned in our past meetings that clean energy infrastructure works best when it works together," Podesta said. "Electric cars can use electricity created by wind turbines and solar power. A smart grid can efficiently bring renewable electricity from points of generation in deserts and plains to points of consumption in cities and towns."

"Efficiency in renewable electricity standards that affect the price of carbon pollution can create the incentives for sustained private investment that can jump-start American production of clean energy technology and the clean energy technology industries of the future," Podesta explained.

President Clinton's White House Chief of Staff, Podesta said he sees President Barack Obama as understanding "this fundamental point: all the elements of a clean energy economy rely on one another. That's why he's made transforming our economy to a clean energy base so central to economic recovery."

Energy Secretary Chu also called for a revolution, "a second industrial revolution." The first industrial revolution came with a "carbon dioxide cost" but "in the next industrial revolution, we must develop technologies that will enable us to get the energy the world needs to grow and prosper but "essentially reducing and eliminating the carbon dioxide," he said.

This solar concentrator at University of Nevada, Las Vegas generates power with a concentration of 250 suns. (Photo courtesy UNLV)

Chu said the United States has the greatest research and development centers in the world in universities, national labs and the private sector. "Once we get this great invention machine geared and going we'd be invincible. But the only trouble is, let's get it going."

Just back from China, Chu said China is "gearing up" to lead in the next revolution and is "going heavily into solar" and is "leading the world now in the highest voltage transmission both A/C and D/C" for "internal consumption" and intends to "be the leader."

"Quite frankly, the United States is still ahead of China and why don't we be the leader?" said Chu, a Nobel Prize winning nuclear physicist.

"We can take the leadership role," Chu said, "but "you have to send first a long-term signal to the people of the United States, to industry, that says 'yes we're going to have a cap on our carbon, and we're going to ratchet it down.'"

"If we move in this direction, we can be the leader and seize the opportunity. If we don't and just try to say, ‘No, we're not really sure this is all happening'" and "'maybe the climate isn't really changing,'" that's "wishful thinking and it's just throwing away this great opportunity."

Nobel Laureate Gore expressed confidence that America can accomplish the goal of his July 2008 Generational Challenge to Repower America - producing 100 percent of America's electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

Gore said he sees "lots and lots of good jobs in this effort to Repower America" and said he has spent the last two years conducting 32 "solution summits" to brainstorm ways of meeting the climate challenge.

"We're going to have to come to grips with the fact that the climate crisis is threatening the future of our civilization and just because those words sound shrill is no excuse for not saying them. We have to face up to this," urged Gore. "We're putting another 70 million tons of global warming pollution in the thin shell of our atmosphere surrounding our planet every 24 hours. This is madness."

"We owe it to ourselves and especially to our children and grandchildren and future generations," declared Gore. "Who are we to make a decision to just keep on being so wasteful and destructive in the teeth of the warnings from every single prestigious scientific organization on this planet? Every single national academy of sciences in the world has endorsed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report saying we have got to act on this."

Al Gore at the National Clean Energy Summit (Photo courtesy CAPAF)

Praising President Obama for "making a down payment" towards that goal with his economic stimulus funding, Gore said many of the green jobs created by repowering the country will be in Nevada, and particularly at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Keith Schwer, director of the UNLV's Center for Business and Economic Research and professor of economics, said current unemployment in Clark County, where Las Vegas is located, stands at 12.3 percent compared to the national rate of 9.4 percent.

"Nevada is blessed with renewable energy" which will "become our export base" as "Nevada will be exporting energy," said Schwer.

Nevada has abundant sun, wind and geothermal energy sources and efficiency technologies that can be developed to meet future energy needs without depending on foreign oil supplies, he said.

Former President Clinton, whose William J. Clinton Foundation has been working with 40 cities to achieve energy efficiency with building retrofits, said "a $520 billion investment could cut U.S. energy end use by 23 percent."

"That's more than Canada's total consumption" and "enables us to do what Robert Kennedy recently suggested ... close 22 percent of our coal plants that are old and uniformly quite small. We could save half or more of the emissions coming out of coal plants in the United States," Clinton said.

Clinton said, "$520 billion sounds like a huge amount of money" but "the last time I checked about two months ago the banks of the U.S. had more than $900 billion in cash uncommitted to loans."

Clinton suggested creating a Small Business Loan Guarantee Program so "you could then go to a bank and say you should renovate the local hospital" because "a guarantee fund stands behind that."

Clinton pointed out, "If we'd done it for the $18 billion that was appropriated in the stimulus bill we could have financed $180 billion worth of building retrofits. Instead of 100,000 jobs you'd have over a million jobs.

Clinton said, "You've got to get the banks involved in this if you want to quit piddling around. We don't need 625,000 jobs gradually building over 10 years. We need three million more jobs today." He said we need to "prove to the American people we can get the 80 percent reduction [in greenhouse gas emissions] by 2050 while growing the economy not shrinking it."

Former General Wesley Clark noted the U.S. imports 12 million barrels of oil every day and burns 140 billion gallons every year.

Pickens said "When we're using 25 percent of oil in the world and we're four percent of the population" the price will become high or be cut off and "have a very sad ending to it."

Pickens envisions that 6.5 million trucks using natural gas would cut U.S. dependency on foreign oil by 2.7 billion barrels a year. Pickens sees this as possible in less than 10 years.

Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington remarked, "When you have an oilman from Texas saying that you need to get off of oil, I don't think you need any bigger mission statement than that."

John Podesta at the summit (Photo courtesy CAPAF)

Podesta foresees that with "supportive federal policies, huge shale gas newly available because of American know-how and technology" can "replace old dirty coal powered plants, dramatically reducing global warming pollution."

In a new paper issued Monday, Podesta and Wirth write, "Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel - it produces less than half as much carbon pollution as coal. Recent technology advancements make affordable the development of unconventional natural gas resources. This creates an unprecedented opportunity to use gas as a bridge fuel to a 21st century energy economy that relies on efficiency, renewable sources, and low-carbon fossil fuels such as natural gas."

"Natural gas can supplement wind and solar energy to solve the intermittency problem that comes with renewable energy," Podesta advised summit participants, adding, "a green bank can provide secure affordable financing to get new technologies off the ground and into the marketplace."

Gore said, "We need a price on carbon because carbon is invisible, tasteless and odorless and we're dumping it into the atmosphere as if it's an open sewer and, because we can't see it, it falls prey to the old saying, out of sight, out of mind."

"If we get a price on carbon then all of a sudden the advantages of natural gas over coal become crystal clear," said Gore, "the advantages of electric vehicles over the internal combustion engine become crystal clear."

Gore said "It takes more electricity just to run electrical appliances in American homes that are turned off than the entire energy use of the nation of Japan. That's how much we use. It's ridiculous."

"This wastefulness and inefficiency is just ingrained, and it has become a way of life," Gore said. The good news is when we make these changes" people "will make money, they'll save on their energy bills," and it will create jobs.

Labor Secretary Solis said she wants to change "that preconceived notion that green jobs are not for everyone or that people don't even know that they exist."

Solis said the "Green Revolution" can "encompass everyone regardless of educational attainment level, literacy level and skill level."

Terry O'Sullivan, president of the 500,000 member Laborers' International Union of North America, said 1.6 million construction workers are unemployed and he looks to the clean energy economy to create green jobs. "If it's not greening the environment, then it's not a good green job; and if it's not putting green in worker's pockets, then it's not a good green job," he said.

Van Jones of the White House Council on Environmental Quality said, "The values that underlie this clean energy conversation" are "the common ground values of America: clean air is better than dirty air for the health of our children."

Van Jones at the summit (Photo courtesy CAPAF)

"If we have the opportunity to fight both poverty and pollution by putting people to work in these new industries, we would be wise as a country to do that," Jones said.

The Obama administration is so committed to energy efficiency because, "We think this is the most fiscally-conservative thing we can do with the federal dollars," said Jones. "The dollars invested in energy efficiency "are humble, hard-working dollars. They work double-time, triple-time, quadruple-time."

Double-time dollars fund job training to create energy efficiency specialists, who install insulation that cuts someone's energy bill. Triple-time working dollars also cut pollution, Jones said, "because a coal fired power plant is working overtime because our homes are so leaky and waste so much energy."

Quadruple-time working dollars cut greenhouse gas emissions from the coal plants and "help us take asthma inhalers out of little girls' and boys' pockets."

Jones said conservatives should like these solutions because, "We're not talking about expanding welfare; we're talking about expanding work. We're not talking about expanding entitlements; we're talking about expanding enterprise and investments."

Reid characterized himself as a capitalist and said, "America is the center of capitalism in the world. With health care reform, no one's trying to make this a government run system. With energy reform we're not trying to make this a program that is going to be taken over by the federal government."

"If you look at energy, though, you have to recognize that government's been heavily involved in energy from the beginning," said Reid. "That's why in virtually every state you have regulated monopolies that control the distribution of electricity and natural gas."

Commending the dedication of summit participants, Reid recalled a visit to Gore's office when he was a U.S. Senator representing Tennessee (1985–93). There he saw a wall chart going to the ceiling showing the projected rise in greenhouse gas emissions. "This is something he's devoted his life to," said Reid.

"Boone Pickens could be in his personal jet going around the world having a good time," he said, "but this 81 year old man has decided he wants to try to change our country for the better."

Reid called on Americans to also be devoted "and speak out against these people who I describe as 'evil-mongers' who are trying to take our country away from us. That's what this conference is all about - changing the direction of our country and the world for the betterment of the American people

An ‘Increase’ in Big Storms May Just Be Better Detection

Since the mid-1990s, hurricanes and tropical storms have struck the Atlantic Ocean with unusual frequency — or have they? Two new studies suggest that the situation may not be so clear.

One, by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, suggests that the high number of storms reported these days may reflect improved observation and analysis techniques, not a meteorological change for the worse. The second, by researchers at Pennsylvania State University and elsewhere, suggests that there were as many storms a thousand years ago, when Atlantic Ocean waters were unusually warm, as today.

The work does not suggest that people should stop worrying about whether global warming increases the threat of bad weather on the Atlantic Coast. But it offers new evidence that predicting what lies ahead may be difficult.

In findings reported this week in The Journal of Climate, the NOAA researchers, led by Christopher W. Landsea, say that several disturbances logged in 2007 and 2008 as tropical storms would never have been identified without satellite observations and new analysis techniques.

The researchers studied storms that played themselves out at sea, either in a day or two or over a longer period, from 1878 to 2008. By the late 19th century, they estimated, meteorologists missed perhaps two of the larger storms each year, and by the 1950s they were picking up on average all but one each year.

Yet the researchers estimate that a century ago, as many as 80 percent of short-lived storms came and went without ever being officially noticed.

Over all, they conclude, storm counts have not changed in the last century.

The other study, described in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature, used a mathematical model of hurricane activity and measurements of sediment deposits to estimate how often major storms struck the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts of the United States in the last 1,500 years. Led by Michael E. Mann of Penn State, the researchers worked with sediment samples from Puerto Rico, the Gulf Coast and the Atlantic Coast from Florida to New England.

Although current numbers are relatively high, they say, both analytical methods suggest that a period of high storm frequency, possibly even higher than today’s, began in the year 900 and lasted until 1200 or so.

The NOAA researchers said their study did not address whether storms would be more powerful in a warmer world. Many researchers believe that such a shift is likely, given that hurricanes and tropical storms draw their energy from the heat of the oceans.

And if today’s ocean warming creates the conditions that prevailed a thousand years ago, Dr. Mann said in a statement, “it may not be just that the storms are stronger, but that there may be more of them as well.”

Sugar Prices Near 30-Year Highs

The price of sugar is trading at 22 cents per pound, the highest in nearly 30 years. The reason is a shortage of supplies: Bad weather has affected the crop in India, and in another major sugar-producing country, Brazil, much of the sugar crop goes toward ethanol.

White Pages Look To Go Green

Each year, an estimated 5 million trees are cut down just to publish the White Pages phone book. It's hard to cut down on the environmental harm because many states require phone companies to publish and deliver white pages phone books to every landline subscriber. On Wednesday, Whitepages.com, an online directory, released a survey of 1,000 adults showing the great majority of people want laws to allow people to "opt-in" if they want a hard copy of the white pages.

Why Don’t We Act on Climate Change?

You know you are worried about climate change, but you do nothing. If that describes how you feel you are not alone.
A new report highlights the perverse dichotomy that although about 80 percent of us believe climate change is really important, we rank it last in a list of 20 issues of concern such as the economy or terrorism.
The study by the American Psychological Association has found that despite warnings from scientists, politicians and environmental groups about climate change, people still don’t feel a sense of urgency about climate change.
This means getting people to “go green” requires policymakers, scientists and marketers to look at psychological barriers to change and what leads people to action or inaction, the report argues.
“What is unique about current global climate change is the role of human behavior,” said task force chair Janet Swim, PhD, of Pennsylvania State University. “We must look at the reasons people are not acting in order to understand how to get people to act.”
The task force identified numerous psychological barriers which they say are to blame, including:
Uncertainty – Research has shown that uncertainty over climate change reduces the frequency of “green” behavior.
Mistrust – Evidence shows that most people don’t believe the risk messages of scientists or government officials.
Denial – A substantial minority of people believe climate change is not occurring or that human activity has little or nothing to do with it, according to various polls (yes, its the flat earth sceptics again!!)
Undervaluing Risks – A study of more than 3,000 people in 18 countries showed that many people believe environmental conditions will worsen in 25 years. While this may be true, this thinking could lead people to believe that changes can be made later.
Lack of Control – People believe their actions would be too small to make a difference and choose to do nothing.
Habit – Ingrained behaviors are extremely resistant to permanent change while others change slowly. Habit is the most important obstacle to pro-environment behavior, according to the report.
The task force did show positive feedback mechanism at work though. For example, people are more likely to use energy-efficient appliances if they are provided with immediate energy-use feedback. Devices that show people how much energy and money they’re conserving can yield energy savings of 5 percent to 12 percent, according to research.
The task force identified other areas where psychology can help limit the effects of climate change, such as developing environmental regulations, economic incentives, better energy-efficient technology and communication methods.
“Many of the shortcomings of policies based on only a single intervention type, such as technology, economic incentives or regulation, may be overcome if policy implementers make better use of psychological knowledge,” the task force wrote.
Campaign group WWF has been looking at exactly this for a number of years. The group’s climate change strategist Dr Tom Crompton argues it is all very well asking people to change their light-bulbs, but how do you move people to bigger behavioural changes? He says that ‘The environmental movement has for too long focused on the policy response, without considering the social and psychological barriers”.
Other research has shown that people feel overwhelmed by the scale of climate change. Others do not like being lectured too. Bottom up grass-roots initiatives are more likely to succeed than top down approaches.
If people are in the UK looking for empowering action on climate change – later this week there is the empowering march against Chevron in Richmond, California. If you are in the UK, there is the Camp for Climate Action happening from 26th August to 2nd September in London.
And in the run up to Copengahen there will be any number of events in any number of countries. So why not get involved and empower yourself …. You might even enjoy it…

India makes forestry key plank in climate change plan

The Indian government unveiled a major plan to protect its forests on Tuesday, saying the initiative was a key element in its strategy to combat climate change.
"Countries like India must get adequate credit for increasing its forest cover that absorbs greenhouse gases," said Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, who is under pressure ahead of global climate change talks in December.
"We are amongst the few countries in the world who are not just stopping deforestation but are actually increasing forestation," he told reporters here.
India has set up a fund to manage its forests with an initial budget of 2.5 billion dollars and annual funding of one billion dollars, a report by the Ministry of Environment and Forests showed Tuesday.
Forests cover 65 million hectares of Indian territory or just over 20 percent of the country, according to the ministry.
While per capita emissions are low in India -- the average Indian produces one tonne of carbon dioxide per year to the average American's 20 tonnes -- its huge population puts it among the world's leading emitters.
India and fellow emerging market heavyweight China have consistently opposed binding emission cuts in a new climate treaty until developed nations, particularly the United States, present sufficiently stringent targets of their own.
Ramesh's statement came ahead of the December conference in Copenhagen, which is meant to seal a new international accord on fighting climate change after the Kyoto Protocol's requirements expire in 2012.
Ramesh also reiterated his belief that the Indian scientific community found "no robust scientific evidence" that climate change was causing Himalayan glaciers to melt.
"There could be other factors," he said.
The United Nations has warned that rising surface temperatures have led to rapid melting of regional ice caps, which are the headwaters for Asias nine largest rivers.

'Complicated, Controversial and Pressing' Climate Issues Loom for Justice's Enviro Division

The Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division will play a pivotal role in implementing a governmentwide effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to former DOJ officials and experts familiar with the division."The division's attorneys have extensive knowledge of federal environmental statutes, have worked with regulatory programs and enforcement approaches, and have been involved with U.S. attorneys and state governments in every state," according to a transition report for the Obama administration written by Georgetown University law professor Richard Lazarus and Lois Schiffer, former assistant attorney general for ENRD.
At present, none of the division's roughly 420 attorneys are assigned exclusively to climate-related litigation, DOJ spokesman Andrew Ames said. "As cases are referred to the department and ENRD, they are assigned to attorneys following the normal procedures used by the division."
While Ames declined to get into specifics, Roger Martella, an attorney at ENRD for more than seven years before moving to U.S. EPA in the George W. Bush administration, said most climate issues will be handled by the division's Environmental Defense Section, which defends EPA decisions in district court and on petitions for review; the Appellate Section, which defends decisions on appeal and advises the solicitor general's office on Supreme Court issues; and ENRD's policy section, which focuses on overreaching and cutting-edge environmental issues.
"Once climate change regulations take effect, I would anticipate that the environmental enforcement section and perhaps the environmental crimes section would be more actively engaged on climate change issues," said Martella, now a partner at Sidley Austin LLP. "For example, the greenhouse gas reporting rule could create obligations as early as Jan. 1, 2010, meaning that enforcement lawyers could be bringing the first federal climate-change enforcement cases in 2011 for failure to comply with the rule."
Some, including Lazarus and Schiffer, believe the division would benefit from creating a separate section or informal working group to focus exclusively on this sprawling issue.
"The legal issues that arise will be complicated, controversial and pressing, and a division-wide Climate Change Initiative would be an effective tool in this key area," Lazarus and Schiffer wrote. "To assure a comprehensive approach, the division should work closely with other components of the department and with its client agencies."
They also suggest that ENRD work in concert with the departments of Energy and Agriculture, in addition to EPA and other agencies, on climate change-related programs.
"If corn-based ethanol, or other sources of ethanol, are subsidized by USDA to encourage their development, litigation that arises from such programs will have a direct effect on the environment and could benefit from [ENRD's] expertise," they wrote.
Schiffer pointed to a large-scale initiative undertaken by the Clinton administration to address management of federal lands in the Pacific Northwest.
"When President Clinton developed the Northwest Forest Plan, it really affected a wide number of agencies, and there was a cross-agency informal working group called together by the Council on Environmental Quality," Schiffer said. "That was probably the last far-reaching issue before climate change."
Similarly to the Northwest working group, ENRD could set up regular meetings with point people at relevant agencies, Schiffer said.
"You could also have one person from each of the nine sections in the division form a intersection group, or the policy section could take the lead," Schiffer said. "It is up to the new head of the division to decide how to proceed."
Role reversal?
Rather than enforcing rules and regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions, ENRD spent much of the last eight years defending federal agencies' inaction in lawsuits brought by various state and environmental groups. This could change under the Obama administration, according to Martella


"It is likely that ENRD's role will transition over time, and perhaps in the near future, from defending suits by some states and nongovernmental organizations, claiming EPA and the administration is not doing enough, to defending suits by other states and industry groups, claiming EPA is acting outside the bounds of existing Clean Air Act authority," Martella said



"We've already seen a transition occur on the California waiver decision after the Obama administration granted California its request to regulate greenhouse gases from cars, reversing the position of the Bush administration," Martella said. "DOJ also will assume more of a prosecutorial role once EPA regulations and climate change legislation go into effect, enforcing against GHG emitters who are not in compliance with the rules."
At the same time, claims that the government is not acting quickly enough on climate change are unlikely to go away, Martella said.
"For example, NGOs are continuing to challenge the Department of Interior's 4(d) rule for the polar bear, which affirmed that greenhouse gas emissions do not trigger adverse impacts to the polar bear, and industry has intervened to help ENRD defend those cases," he said.
Even if major climate legislation fizzles this year, environmental groups still have several avenues to pursue legal solutions to climate problems.
"Even if there isn't a new law, there are still going to be cases," Schiffer said. "They range from everything to people who are suing under the Endangered Species Act to the National Environmental Policy Act. The litigation cuts across a lot of work in the sections even now."
And if the House-passed climate and energy bill does become law, there are still likely to be climate cases brought based on ESA and NEPA, she said.
There will also be new legal challenges, and ENRD should be preparing for immediate litigation.
"The Justice Department not only has to work hand in hand with other agencies like EPA, but it has to be geared up and ready to hit the ground running when new rules and legislation become finalized," said Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch.
In a July speech marking ENRD's 100th anniversary, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson touched on the role the division could play in combating climate change:
"Congress is working through a landmark clean energy and climate bill as we speak -- one that stands to create millions of jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce the emissions that cause climate change," she said. "If that bill passes, then, inevitably, with a new set of laws comes a new set of lawsuits. I'm sure we'll all be busy working through whatever role EPA eventually plays in that process."
Confirmation hearing for ENRD nominee
The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to hold confirmation hearings on President Obama's pick to head ENRD next month, according to a DOJ official who spoke on background.
The nomination of Ignacia Moreno continues to generate controversy among those who object to her role as counsel of corporate environmental programs at General Electric Co.
"She has a very slim resume when it comes to working for the public," O'Donnell said. "Our fundamental criticism of her hasn't changed since she was first nominated. She's someone who's a lot better versed at working for the bad guys as we would depict them."
"And she's worked for some pretty serious bad guys -- if you look at GE and General Motors Corp.," he said, adding: "GE is king of the bad guys when it comes to Superfunds, and a large part of Justice's job is looking at Superfund cases."
Prior to joining GE in 2006, Moreno worked at the Washington law firm Spriggs & Hollingsworth, where she specialized in environmental and mass tort litigation. She also worked for DOJ during the Clinton administration, serving as special assistant and principal counsel to the assistant attorney general for ENRD. She began her career at Hogan & Hartson LLP, where she practiced with the firm's environmental and litigation groups.
Despite her private-sector work, she won the endorsement of Schiffer, who hired Moreno in 1994.
"She will be a strong and effective leader," Schiffer said. "She has a strong legal and litigation background, which is imperative to doing this job well."
Moreno received another vote of confidence from Gerald Torres, who served as deputy assistant attorney general for ENRD and as counsel to then-Attorney General Janet Reno.
"She was a relatively new attorney when we hired her, but I remember her being committed to environmental law and being very sharp," Torres said. "One of the things that impressed me was her capacity to look at a wide range of issues and get up to speed very quickly."
If confirmed, Moreno would lead a staff of more than 600 who carry an active file of about 6,000 cases. John Cruden has served as the acting assistant attorney general since January.