Reply #4: Here is the entire schedule - and it looks great It will be carried on CSPAN-3

[karynnj]

ENERGY SECURITY:
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
AND MODERN CHALLENGES
HEARING
before the

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Time: 2:00 P.M.
Place: 419 Dirksen Senate Building
Presiding: Senator Kerry


Witnesses:

Panel 1:
+The Honorable Jimmy Carter
Former President of the United States
Plains, Georgia

Panel 2:
+Frederick W. Smith
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
FedEx Corporation
Memphis, Tennessee
+General Charles F. Wald, USAF (Ret.)
Senior Fellow
Bipartisan Policy Center
Washington, D.C.

In addition to Carter, the people testifying are interesting. Smith, is extremely conservative - and a long time close friend of Kerry. Wald was a co-author of a report on the national security impact of global warming. To me, this looks like Kerry is trying to put the arguments that can win over the other side front and center.

Fred Smith, who is a Kerry friend from Yale - even though he openly supported Bush and is VERY conservative - was important at a hearing on CAFE standards in 2006 - the year Snowe and Kerry managed to negotiate a major increase in the standards - here is an article posted here - thanks Wisteria -, from that time:

"Memphis-based FedEx Corp., which operates 77,000 vehicles and spends $3 billion a year on fuel, has 93 hybrid-electric vehicles in its fleet, and is supporting efforts to refine the technology. The hybrids, however, cost $35,000 more than a conventional delivery vehicle, said FedEx Chairman and CEO Frederick W. Smith. Widespread deployment is "impossible," he said, with that kind of cost disparity.
Smith, who co-chairs the Energy Security Leadership Council, supports higher fuel economy standards, as long as they're tailored to specific types of vehicles.

"I rarely come to Washington to argue for government regulation," Smith told Kerry's committee.
But the free market "has not -- and will not -- adequately motivate the investments necessary to protect the nation in the event of an oil crisis," he said. "As such, mandating improvements in the fuel economy of our cars and trucks is one critical and unavoidable step that Americans must take if we are to halt our national descent into unmitigated oil dependence."

General Wald was one of the 3 and 4 star officers who wrote a report that analyzed the national security impact of global warming. Senator Biden chaired a hearing with the officers at Senator Kerry's request. Here is a fantastic summary of that hearing from the Kerry blog - http://www.johnkerry.com/blog/entry/live_blogging_climate_change/

General Charles F. Wald, USAF (Ret), who was formerly a deputy commander in Africa and the Middle East, sees Africa as the biggest problem. The fear is of giant migrations as water and food become scarce. Darfur partially started due to climate change, where people migrated as land became unusable. The alternation of floods and droughts in Somalia led to problems there, which causes extremism to grow. Wald said, “Climate change is a threat multiplier everywhere.”