Exelon Corporation, Rio Tinto Join U.S. Climate Action in Call for Climate Change Legislation

Energy Resource, Sept 6, 2007

ENERGY RESOURCE-6 September 2007-Exelon Corporation, Rio Tinto Join U.S. Climate Action in Call for Climate Change Legislation(C)2007 JeraOne - http://www.jeraone.com

The Exelon Corporation and Rio Tinto have joined the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a business-NGO alliance that has called on Congress to quickly enact national economy-wide legislation to address climate change.

USCAP is made up of 33 organizations, including 27 of the world's largest corporations and six respected non-governmental organizations.

Exelon, one of the nation's largest electric utilities, has already established its own voluntary emissions reductions. Rio Tinto, one of the world's leading mining and exploration companies, is pursuing a number of technology solutions to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiencies.

"Exelon was an early and vocal advocate for mandatory, economy-wide carbon regulation. By joining other industry leaders in USCAP, we add our very strong voice to those who are working with Congress to enact climate change legislation as soon as possible," said John W. Rowe, Exelon chairman, president and CEO. "We support USCAP's call for a cap-and-trade program to provide regulatory certainty and create economic opportunity. And in the meantime, as a member of the U.S. EPA's Climate Leaders program we are on track to meet our voluntary goal of reducing our own greenhouse gas emissions by 8 percent from 2001 levels by the end of 2008."

Tom Albanese, CEO of Rio Tinto, added "Climate change is a critical issue for our business. Not only do we produce energy resources, such as coal, but our mining and mineral processing operations use large quantities of energy. Combating climate change means finding new and better ways of producing, using and conserving energy. USCAP provides an important forum to advance comprehensive policy that includes both market approaches and technology options."

The founding members of USCAP are Alcoa, BP America, Caterpillar, Duke Energy, DuPont, FPL Group, Inc., General Electric, PG&E, and PNM Resources, as well as Environmental Defense, Natural Resources Defense Council, Pew Center on Global Climate Change and World Resources Institute.

Twenty additional organizations have joined the partnership this year: American International Group (AIG), Alcan, Boston Scientific, ConocoPhillips, Deere & Company, The Dow Chemical Company, the Exelon Corporation, Ford Motor Company, General Motors Corp., Johnson & Johnson, Marsh, NRG Energy, PepsiCo, Rio Tinto, Shell, Siemens, The Chrysler Group, The Nature Conservancy, the National Wildlife Federation and Xerox.

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