ELI Annual Award Dinner

ELI will present the 2013 Environmental Achievement Award to George P. Shultz and Thomas F. Steyer to recognize their outstanding leadership to reduce climate change and advance clean energy. The Award will be presented to Shultz and Steyer at ELI’s annual dinner on Tuesday evening, October 22 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

ELI recognizes George Shultz and Tom Steyer for their outstanding bipartisan leadership in preserving AB 32, the California “Global Warming Solutions Act,” and in creating the Californians for Clean Energy & Jobs Network. ELI also recognizes them for their individual actions to advance clean energy programs by providing leadership and funds for innovative research and policy analysis designed to develop a sustainable global energy system.

To preserve AB 32, Shultz and Steyer united to lead a statewide campaign to persuade California voters to vote “No on Prop 23.” If passed, Prop 23 would have essentially indefinitely suspended AB 32, thereby halting the only United States economy wide cap and trade program to reduce emissions of CO2 and abate global climate change. Because of their outstanding joint campaign, Prop 23 was decisively defeated.

To foster California’s clean energy future, Shultz and Steyer created Californians for Clean Energy & Jobs Network. This dynamic coalition of business, labor, environmental, and community groups played a key role in the “No on Prop 23” campaign. Now it promotes renewable energy jobs, projects, and businesses. The Network brings together a broad coalition comprised of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group; Ella Baker Center for Human Rights; Natural Resources Defense Council; the Environmental Defense Fund; Los Angeles Business Council; Clean TECH San Diego; California League of Conservation Voters; California Business Alliance for a Green Economy; the American Lung Association in California; the Blue Green Alliance; Bay Area Council; and Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2). In creating this coalition, Steyer and Shultz provide an outstanding example for our nation and the world of bringing together leading organizations from all sectors of our economy and society to make environmental, economic, and social progress for future generations.

George Shultz chairs the Hoover Institution’s Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy, which has analyzed adverse effects of energy use on global climate and developed a range of prescriptive policies to address these energy challenges. He chairs the advisory boards of the Stanford Precourt Institute for Energy and the MIT Energy Initiative. The Institute seeks to create opportunities for scientists, engineers, social scientists, and legal and business scholars to solve world energy problems. The Initiative focuses on creating industry partnerships and a research portfolio for transformational technology development for a low-carbon future.

Tom Steyer and his wife, Kat Taylor, joined Warren Buffett, Bill and Melinda Gates and other high-wealth Americans in the “Giving Pledge,” a promise to donate the majority of their wealth to charitable and nonprofit activities during their lifetimes. His focus on addressing global climate change has been a major part of this commitment. He and his wife have created and funded two Stanford University clean energy Centers — the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy and the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy and Finance — that are designed to lead to a transformation of the world’s energy systems to a sustainable future and to push deployment of clean energy through a focus on policy and finance. Tom Steyer has also created and funded the Yale University Energy Sciences Institute to undertake cutting edge research to advance clean energy and address environmental and health concerns associated with fossil fuels. He has created a number of nonprofits including Advanced Energy Economy and the Center for the Next Generation.

George P. Shultz served as the United States Secretary of Labor from 1969 to 1970, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget from 1970 to 1972, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1972 to 1974, and the U.S. Secretary of State from 1982 to 1989. Before being appointed Secretary of Labor, he was an economics professor at MIT and at the University of Chicago, where, from 1962 to 1969, he served as Dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. From 1974 to 1982 he was President and Director of the Bechtel Group, Inc. Currently, he is the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

Thomas Fahr Steyer is the founder and former Co-Senior Managing Partner of Farallon Capital Management, LLC. He is a former Managing Director and member of the Investment Committee at Hellman & Friedman LLC. He also is the Co-Founder and Director of OnePacificCoastBank, an Oakland-based community development bank, and is a board member of the Center for American Progress. He serves as a Member of the Investment Advisory Committee of The Federal Reserve Bank of New York.