Driving the future: Combating climate change with cleaner, smarter cars
Featuring Margo Oge, Former Director of the EPA’s Office of Air Quality and Transportation
Pizza lunch served at 11:50 AM
Book sigining with Margo Oge immediately following (books will be available for purchase).
In recognition of Earth Day, please join us for a very special lecture about what it takes to pass historic air quality legislation. Margo Oge served at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for 32 years, the last 18 of which she directed the Office of Transportation Air Quality. Ms. Oge led the Obama Administration’s landmark 2012 Clean Air Act deal with automakers, the nation’s first action targeting greenhouse gases. This regulation will double the fuel efficiency of automakers’ fleets to 54.5 mpg and cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2025.
In Driving the Future: Combating Climate Change with Cleaner, Smarter Cars Margo Oge will provide the ultimate insider’s account of the science, politics, policy, legal battles and, most importantly, the people who made possible this historic regulation. She then describes the technological, social, economic and regulatory terrain in which even larger reductions in greenhouse gases could be achieved. Finally, she lays out the future of technology that will enable a global market for super-efficient, zero carbon-emitting vehicles and other sustainable personal mobility options.
Oge envisions a future of clean, intelligent vehicles with lighter frames and alternative power trains, such as plug in electric and fuel cell vehicles that produce zero emissions and average 100+ mpg. The cars of tomorrow will have electronic architectures more like that of airplanes, and will be smarter and safer, park themselves, and network with other vehicles on the road to drive themselves, save fuel and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These innovative vehicles will be necessary to combat climate change as the transportation sector accounts for one-third the global greenhouse gas emissions in the US.
About Margo Oge:
Formerly the Director of the EPA’s Office of Air Quality and Transportation, Margo Oge is the Vice Chairman of the Board of Deltawing Technologies. Margo Oge served at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for 32 years, the last 18 of which she directed the Office of Transportation Air Quality. While there, she was a chief architect of some of the most important achievements in reducing transportation-related air pollution. As a result of these rules, emissions from cars, trucks, buses, off-road vehicles, locomotives and marine vessels—as well as gasoline and diesel fuel—were reduced up to 99 percent. These regulations prevent over 40,000 premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of respiratory illnesses each year.
Ms. Oge also serves on the boards of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the National Academy of Sciences for Energy and Environment, the International Council for Clean Transportation and the Alliance for Climate Education. Additionally, she is a member of the Department of Energy’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Advisory Committee and the National Academies of Science Advisory Committee for the U.S. Global Climate Change Research Program.
Ms. Oge holds an MS in Engineering from University of Massachusetts-Lowell. She has received presidential awards for her work at the EPA from President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush.
SPONSORED BY: University of Michigan Energy Institute; University of Michigan Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP); and the University of Michigan Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program (STPP)
For more information contact Jason Berry berryjas@umich.edu