By Ann W. Parks

Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas (left), recently nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, spoke at the launch of the new Georgetown State-Federal Climate Resource Center on February 23. Governor Chris Gregoire of Washington (right) also delivered remarks.

Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, speaks at the event.

Georgetown Law has a new State-Federal Climate Resource Center — and the atmosphere on the 12th floor of Gewirz Student Center during the February 23 kickoff celebration was jubilant and hopeful.

“This new center at Georgetown means a great deal to the law school, and we hope that it will provide an important new voice [to the] policy debate of our day,” said Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff as he welcomed attendees and speakers including Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Governor Chris Gregoire of Washington State. Lisa Jackson, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, arrived later in the evening to give her remarks, as did Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Nearly 250 people, including representatives from state cabinets and agencies, environmental organizations, think tanks, businesses, and law firms rounded out the crowd. Georgetown Law alumni, faculty, staff and students were equally well represented.

“We’re delighted that we’ll be working with state and local governments, as we try to provide a bridge between those governments and the federal government,” Aleinikoff said. “We can’t really be better located than we are here, we don’t think, to provide that bridge.”

Jackson said that the center will provide not only a voice for the states but a resource for them as they cope with the day-to-day problems of climate change. And the states, Jackson predicted, will be important contributors in solving those problems.

“We’re trying to change the country’s direction fairly significantly on climate,” she said. “It’s not going to be able to be done … without lots of thought about what’s legal, what’s illegal, what’s good policy, what’s bad policy, what makes sense cost-wise, and what doesn’t make sense cost-wise.”

Jackson also thanked Georgetown for “lending” Lisa Heinzerling — the Georgetown Law professor who was named senior climate counsel to the EPA administrator in January.

“I should apologize for depriving you of the ability to take a class from her,” Jackson told the many law students present for the center’s launch. “But perhaps you will feel comforted to know that she is already having an extraordinary impact in making public policy that serves all of us in this country and indeed, the world.”

 

Focus

Executive Director Vicki Arroyo said she looked forward to working with other organizations to inform the federal dialogue on climate policy. The climate center will focus on four goals: shaping environmental legislation; increasing efficiency, reducing emissions and lowering greenhouse gases through regulation; developing policy approaches to transportation; and adapting to changes such as rising sea levels, intensifying hurricanes, wildfires and drought.

Fortunately, this last challenging goal has just become a bit easier. As Arroyo announced, the Rockefeller Foundation recently awarded a new $500,000 grant to support the center’s adaptation work. The initial funders — the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation — were also recognized for their contributions.

“We are feeling the adverse effects of climate change,” Arroyo said. “We need to plan for and respond to these changes and anticipate how our policies and laws need to change to accommodate the ever-changing world in which we find ourselves.”

 

Moving forward

Governor Sebelius — speaking just days before her nomination by President Barack Obama to head the Department of Health and Human Services — noted that past attempts to plan for climate change and reduce greenhouse gases “have really been uniquely at the state level.” Now, with the new center, there’s not only an opportunity for dialogue but a means to take state initiatives in this area to a national level and beyond, she said.

“I can tell you that our international partners are thrilled again that the United States will be back at the table and wants to re-engage in the dialogue,” Sebelius told the crowd. “So this is a great opportunity.” (Sebelius is, by the way, a current Georgetown Law parent and the spouse of an alumnus.)

Governor Gregoire discussed the environmental debate in the western states, noting that in her past four years in office, she’s had to make more emergency declarations than ever in the history of the state.

“We flood in the winter, and then I issue emergencies in the summer because we have droughts and wildfires,” Gregoire said. “We, as a coastal state, are a perfect example that if we don't get going, the consequences are so severe to us …. We don’t have an alternative but to move forward.”

Michael Northrop, a program director with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, read a letter from Florida Governor Charlie Crist heralding the launch of the new center and outlining the steps his state has taken to address climate change. Tremaine Foundation President Stewart Hudson encouraged those in the room from other organizations working on climate policy to partner with the new center. And Georgetown Law Professor Peter Byrne, the center’s faculty director, was on hand to introduce Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, who has a distinguished record of work in California as well as with the national EPA.

“I come back to Washington with a renewed vigor,” Sutley said, “having learned about how states and local government and the federal government, if they’re all growing in the right direction … can work to together to literally change the world.”

 

No better time

Everyone seemed to agree that with the atmosphere of change sweeping Washington, D.C., there could be no a better time to launch a climate change center than now. The governors, who met with members of the Obama Administration during their stay in town as part of the National Governors Association’s annual meeting, were thrilled to be talking about climate change at those events as well.

“This time, we come back [to D.C.] and there’s a welcome mat out,” Gregoire said. “‘What can we do?’ ‘How can we partner?’ ‘How fast can we go?’”

And all seemed to agree with Dean Aleinikoff that there is no better place to launch such a center than at Georgetown Law. Administrator Jackson noted that one of the fundamental strengths of the new initiative is that it is based at a university with students who are “ready to ride this wave” of energy and climate work.

“Please make sure that in harnessing the states, you harness the young folk,” Jackson said, in what she called her “one plea” to the center’s organizers. “Because we are going to need their momentum to drive this engine of change.”

 

A Webcast of the event can be seen at http://www.law.georgetown.edu/webcast/eventDetail.cfm?eventID=709

For more on the center, see http://www.law.georgetown.edu/gcc/index.htm