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OBERLIN COLLEGE SYMPOSIUM TO ASK IS THE GOVERNMENT ZAPPING OUR ENERGY?
FEBRUARY 19, 2001--Some of our country's leading economists, political scientists, energy policy and technology experts will convene in Oberlin next month to take part in the Williams-Smith Symposium Is the Government Zapping Our Energy? Regulation, Deregulation and Subsidies.
The sessions, which are free and open to the public, will be held Friday, March 8 and Saturday, March 9, in the Hallock auditorium of the College's Lewis Environmental Studies Center, 122 Elm Street.
The symposium will open Friday, March 8 at 7:30 P.M. with a keynote address titled "Electricity Deregulation: What's Gone Right? What's Gone Wrong?" The speaker will be Paul Joskow, Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics and Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
In addition to Joskow, the presenters will include Tim Brennan, professor of policy sciences and economics at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and a senior fellow with Resources for the Future; Jerry Taylor, the director of Natural Resource Studies at the CATO Institute; Karen Palmer, senior fellow at Resources for the Future; and Steven A. McAleavy, director of the energy division for Search Consultants International.
To bring students and the public into current debates raging among politicians and experts over the country's energy future, the panelist will present papers and take part in discussions reflecting a broad range of opinions, on the role of the US government in the energy sector.
Participants will consider such questions as -- after decades of regulations and subsidies, are there any principles upon which future government participation in energy markets and technology development can be based? Should the government lead or withdraw from shaping energy technology development and markets? What priorities should guide regulation: supply, longevity, environmental preservation, market freedoms.
The symposium is sponsored by the Williams-Smith Lecture Fund, the departments of economics, physics, politics, the environmental studies program, and the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences. The Williams-Smith Fund is named for Oberlin alumni Jeanette Williams Smith '39 and William G. Smith '38 and was created to honor their combined government service of more than 60 years and gratitude to Oberlin College. The Fund provides resources for lecture series on private enterprise and democracy.
PROGRAM
All presentations
will be in the Hallock Auditorium of the Lewis Environmental Studies Center.
Friday, March 8th 7:30 P.M. Paul Joskow, Keynote speaker, "Electricity Deregulation: What's gone right? What's gone Wrong?"
Saturday, March 9th 9:30 A.M. Tim Brennan "Challenges in Deregulating Electricity: Drawing the Right Lessons from California."
Saturday, March 9th 10:45 A.M. Jerry Taylor: "The Economic Case (Against) a Government Technology Policy."
Saturday, March 9th 1:00 P.M. Karen Palmer: "Electricity Restructuring: Consequences and Opportunities for the Environment."
Saturday, March 9th 2:10 P.M. Steve McAleavy: "The Emerging Power Market: Reality, Perception and the Process of Commoditization...A Recruiters View of the Power Industry."
BIOGRAPHIES
PAUL L. JOSKOW
Paul L. Joskow is Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics and
Management at MIT and Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental
Policy Research. He has been on the MIT faculty since 1972 and served
as Head of the MIT Department of Economics from 1994 to 1998. At MIT he
is engaged in teaching and research in the areas of industrial organization,
energy and environmental economics, and government regulation of industry.
Professor Joskow has published five books and over 100 articles and papers
in these areas.
His papers have appeared in The American Economic Review, The Journal of Political Economy, The Journal of Law and Economics, The Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, The Rand Journal, The Journal of Econometrics, The Yale Law Journal, The International Economic Review, The Energy Journal, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Electricity Journal, Foreign Affairs, The Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Science, and other journals and books.
Professor Joskow has been a Visiting Professor and Fellow at the John F.Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, a Fellow at the Center For Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School. He has served as an advisor or consultant to the National Science Foundation, The Sloan Foundation, The National Research Council, The Ford Foundation, the OECD, the World Bank, the Electric Power Research Institute, and other government and nonprofit organizations.
He was a member of the EPA's Acid Rain Advisory Committee and currently serves on the Environmental Economics Committee of the EPA's Science Advisory Board. He has also served as a consultant on regulatory and competitive issues to organizations in the United States, The United Kingdom, Spain, New Zealand, France, Russia, Canada, and Mexico. Professor Joskow is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, was a member of the Boards of Directors of the New England Electric System until its acquisition by the National Grid Group (NGG), and subsequently joined the Board of Directors of NGG. He is also a Director of State Farm Indemnity Company, the Whitehead Institute for Biological Research, and a Trustee of the Putnam Mutual Funds. He is President of the Yale University Council, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institut d'Economie Industrielle (Toulouse, France), and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Conservation Law Foundation. Professor Joskow is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
TIM BRENNAN
Tim Brennan is a Professor of Policy Sciences and Economics at the University
of Maryland Baltimore County and a Senior Fellow with Resources for the
Future. With Karen Palmer at RFF and others, he is a co-author of A
Shock to the System: Restructuring America's Electricity Industry, and
Alternating Currents: Electricity Markets and Public Policy. In addition
to electricity restructuring, his research topics include antitrust, regulatory
design, telecommunications policy, intellectual property, and the philosophy
of economics. Prior to joining UMBC, Tim was an associate professor of
telecommunications and George Washington University and an economist with
the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. From 1996-97,
he served as senior staff economist for industrial organization and regulation
for the White House Council of Economic Advisors. He received his Ph.D.
in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1978.
JERRY TAYLOR
The director
of Natural Resource Studies, Jerry Taylor challenges the "market failure"
critique of free markets as they pertain to energy policy and environmental
protection. Under his direction, the Cato Institute has become the nation's
most influential critics of federal and state environmental policy. He
is active on the lecture circuit both within academic and governmental
circles. He has served on numerous congressional advisory bodies and has
testified over a dozen times at hearings on Capitol Hill regarding various
energy and environmental policy matters. Taylor is a frequent contributor
to a host of prominent newspapers and magazines, such as the Washington
Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today,
as well as one of the most frequently cited experts in energy and environmental
policy in the nation. A frequent television and radio guest and is a regular
commentator on CNN, NPR, and the BBC, Taylor is the author of numerous
studies and journal essays on energy and environmental issues. He has
also contributed to several anthologies, including Market Liberalism:
A New Paradigm for the 21st Century, The Cato Handbook for Congress,
and China as a Global Economic Power: Market Reforms and the New Millennium.
Most recently, he was a contributor to Earth Report 2000: Revisiting
the True State of the Planet (New York: McGraw Hill, 1999).
KAREN PALMER
Karen Palmer is a senior fellow in Resources for the Future's (RFF) Quality
of the Environment division. Her research interests include electricity
restructuring, environmental regulation of the electricity sector, and
cost-effectiveness analysis of environmental regulation. Recently her
research has focused on assessing the potential environmental effects
of electricity restructuring and analyzing the environmental and economic
consequences of greenhouse gas reduction policies targeted at the electricity
sector. In 1996, Palmer co-authored A Shock to the System: Restructuring
America's Electricity Industry, published by RFF. The book provides
policymakers, industry participants, and other interested parties with
an overview of the complex array of economic and regulatory policy issues
raised by electricity industry restructuring. In 1996, Palmer spent six
months as a visiting economist in the Office of Economic Policy at the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission where she worked on electricity regulatory
issues. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Boston College.
STEVEN MCALEAVY
Steven A. McAleavy joined Search Consultants International in 1995, specializing
in executive search and placement for the Power Marketing Industry. After
moving to California in 1982 he spent six years in software analysis and
marketing and then entered the field of technical recruiting in 1988 in
Los Angeles, California. He began recruiting in the aerospace and aviation
industry, earning Rookie-of-the-Year honors his first year in the business.
McAleavy received a BA - Political Science degree in 1982 from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. In 1990 he moved his family to Houston to pursue a Ph.D. degree at Rice University. Finishing graduate studies in 1994, McAleavy worked on the Houston City Council and with a number of local community groups addressing land use issues in Houston. In 1995 McAleavy reentered the field of technical recruiting, joining Search Consultants International, and focused on the deregulating electricity industry. Currently Director - Energy Division for Search Consultants, McAleavy recruits in all areas of power marketing / trading and has been instrumental in moving Search Consultants into the areas of risk management (both financial and trading controls), deal structuring, and quantitative analysis.
Since joining Search Consultants, McAleavy has enjoyed the recognition of and received awards from the Houston Area Association of Personnel Consultants and the Texas Association of Personnel Consultants for excellence in recruiting. McAleavy has spoken at numerous conferences on the state of the market relative to hiring, salaries, and the state of deregulation.
Media Contact: Betty Gabrielli
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