Former CIA Director stresses energy security to florida lawmakers

TALLAHASSEE -Florida’s Capitol City had a real live spy in its midst this week. The Florida Alliance for Renewable Energy in conjunction with E.D.F., hosted Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey for a series of meetings with elected officials and executives. Mr. Woolsey, who is currently a partner at VantagePoint Venture Partners, visited Tallahassee bringing with him a powerful message about the critical and time sensitive importance of establishing energy security. Through a policy mechanism known as a Renewable Energy Dividend (R.E.D.) also known as a Feed in Tariff (F.I.T.), the State of Florida would be taking great strides towards establishing wide spread, distributed generation of renewable energy. Mr. Woolsey asserted that we can achieve energy security through the creation of a smarter, more reliable, secure electricity grid.

 By creating thousands of individual’s sources of power generation, Florida and the United States can mitigate its vulnerability to cyber hackers and power generation terrorist attacks, “taking one more item off of the bad guys target list” said Mr. Woolsey.  His message resonated with legislators when he spoke about just how easy a terrorist could hack into our utility grid management system, claiming “if a tree branch can do it, Al Qaeda can too”, referring to one of the worst power outages in recent history. 

 Mr. Woolsey testified in front of the House Energy and Utility Committee as well as the Senate Committee on Communications, Energy and Public Utility.  These committees will be responsible for passing legislation that will help the state meet its Renewable Portfolio Standard. He testified that a Renewable Energy Dividend (R.E.D.) policy would be extremely effective in achieving much needed widespread power generation, and was an ideal way for the state to meet the Renewable Portfolio Standard.  Mr. Woolsey followed these testimonies up with a private meeting with Governor Crist. During his day and a half tour he also met with caucuses from the Republicans and Democrats, Commissioner of Agriculture Charles Bronson and Speaker of the House Larry Cretul, as well as over a dozen individual meetings with state legislators. His message of achieving energy security through widespread, distributed generation was both timely and relevant, as the topic of job creation through renewable energy is a major focus in this year’s legislative session.

 In the evening, Mr. Woolsey attended a special screening of the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car” hosted by House Majority Leader Adam Hasner. He spoke afterwards to a crowd of attendees and legislators alongside the movie’s star Chelsea Sexton, an electric vehicle activist. Mr. Woolsey claimed “I spent most of my life trying to blow up, negotiate with, or spy on the bad guys, now I am trying to bankrupt them”. By establishing widespread, homegrown renewable energy and reducing our dependence on foreign oil, Mr. Woolsey said we can drastically reduce the billions of dollars sent to the Middle East every week for the purchase of oil. 

 Mike Antheil and John Burges of FARE, Andrew Walmsley of the Farm Bureau, Former CIA Director Jim Woolsey, Commissioner of Agriculture Charles Bronson, Jerry Karnas of EDF

 
Mike Antheil, Jerry Karnas, Senator Mike Bennett, Jim Woolsey, John Burges