Has BP Burned Energy Legislation?

By Eric Seidel, CEO

The Media Trainers®

Despite millions of gallons of crude gushing up from a BP site in the Gulf of Mexico, the US Senate sponsors insist now is the right time for an energy bill that includes offshore drilling.

The Lieberman, Kerry, Graham bill no longer has Sen. Lindsay Graham’s (GOP-SC) support. One of his reasons: the timing’s wrong thanks to the spill. But, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John Kerry (D-MA) persist. Lieberman says now's the time and the votes are there.

So, what are they saying in the energy industry? Well, there’s some disagreement about the timing. American Electric Power is the biggest coal-burning utility in the country. While CEO Michael Morris likes the senate bill’s free allocated carbon credits provision (instead of cap & trade), he sees trouble due to the BP spill.

With or without the spill, though, Arch Coal Co. CEO Steven Leer presses the point that fossil fuels continue to play a dominant role in power production and will for a long time to come.

Only about 2% of today’s electricity is generated by renewables, according to Leer. It will be years, he says, before alternatives play a bigger role than coal, gas and oil. And oil, he adds, is not used much to generate power here in the states. He suggests the US should do the same as China and develop every fuel source.

Theft Via Copier

Careful what you run through a copying machine. Each copier has a hard drive that records copied documents. Buyers of used copiers might just be paying for access to your secrets. Watch this CBS News report.

He Said It

"News is what someone wants to suppress. Everything else is advertising."

--Harry Evans, the former Editor of the Times of London

You've Got 30 Seconds!

Click on this picture!

By Eric Seidel, CEO

The Media Trainers®

Have you noticed how time-constrained live interviews have become on the cable news networks? Tight formats, "hard breaks" and very interruptive news anchors are making it more difficult than ever to clearly make a point.

Typically, you get little if any warning just how quickly they need you to respond before you’re gone and they’re off to something else. So, you need to go into these situations armed with messages you can get in quickly and concisely, even on some of the most complex topics.

For instance, healthcare reform. Now there’s an issue that lends itself to snappy, short sound bites! Well, Southern Co. CEO David Ratcliffe was asked to do just that recently on Fox Business Network.

Telling Ratcliffe they had only 30 seconds left, anchor Alexis Glick asked how healthcare reform will impact his company. Hard to know, the CEO responded, too complex an issue, just like climate change.

By tying in climate change, Ratcliffe slightly repositioned the issue. He targeted specific audiences possibly watching this interview. Perhaps some Congressional leaders and critical committee staffers heard him saying that right now there’s a lot of confusion about both healthcare and climate change legislation. He wants more clarity, and also wants them to understand the economic impact of their actions on Southern Co. and its customers. It was a message that other CEOs for many companies in various industries certainly must've appreciated.

By the way, Ratcliffe said it all in about 32 seconds. Not bad, considering he had no clock to go by and probably no indication he would get a question on such a complex topic with an unrealistic window of time limit. (See for yourself; click on video below.)