Cartoon #134 - With The Internal and External Problems The US is Facing Now, You Wonder If The Winner in The Presidential Stakes Is Not Really The One That Gets Full Punishment Thus Being The Real Loser? Is That Worth to Sarah Palin To Give Up Her Two-Years Young Governship - To Run For A Losing VP Position? Flabbergasted Is The Non-Cartoon Word!

Historic Breakthroughs: Milestones for Blacks in the US
The Los Angeles Times - Today, Thursday, August 28, 2008.

 http://www.truthout.org/article/on-king-…

Forty-five years to the day after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois will formally accept his party’s nomination for president. Here are some key landmarks in African American political history:

1847 Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, launches an abolitionist newspaper called the North Star.

1857 The U.S. Supreme Court dismisses the appeal for freedom of a Missouri slave named Dred Scott because “Negroes, whether slaves or free, that is, men of the African race, are not citizens of the United States by the Constitution.”

1863 President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, a presidential order that frees slaves in states that were in rebellion against the federal government.

1866 The Civil Rights Act, which grants full citizenship to those born on U.S. soil (except Indians), is passed.

1870 Hiram Rhodes Revels of Mississippi is elected as the first African American U.S. senator. That same year, the 15th Amendment, which prohibits states from denying the right to vote because of race, is ratified.

1909 The National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, a civil rights organization, is formed by W.E.B. DuBois and others.

1954 The Supreme Court outlaws segregation in public schools in the Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan., case.

1963 More than 200,000 people participate on the march on Washington and assemble at the Lincoln Memorial, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. makes his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

1965 President Lyndon Johnson issues an executive order that prohibits federal contractors from discriminating in hiring on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

1967 Former NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall is the first black justice appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

1989 L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia is the first African American to be elected as governor of a U.S. state.

1992 Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois becomes the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Senate.

  2001 Colin Powell is the first African American appointed secretary of State.

2005 Condoleezza Rice becomes the first black woman to serve as secretary of State.

  2008 Barack Obama becomes the first African American presidential nominee of a major party.

Bona Biden: Why Biden is such an important pick for those who care about the climate.
Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) on August 25, 2008.

Catastrophic climate change is the primary preventable threat to the health and well-being of all Americans — as readers of this blog already understand and as pretty much everyone else will figure out in the coming years. Keeping total planetary warming as low as possible — ideally below 2°C, which it turn requires keeping atmospheric concentrations of CO2 below 450 ppm — will become the central organizing principle for all U.S. energy, environmental, economic, and international policy over the next two decades, and will almost certainly remain so for the next two centuries.

While this is a long-term problem, “What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment,” as IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri warned last fall. Beating 450 ppm is certainly not politically possible now, as I have argued in a long ongoing series. Indeed, the recent climate debate in the Senate makes it painfully clear that conservatives are prepared to go down with the climate ship.

The current oil drilling “debate” only underscores how hopeless the climate situation is until progressives occupy the White House.

That said, the next president is almost certainly going to pass some sort of climate legislation establishing a cap on greenhouse gas emissions that kicks in around 2015. Again, it won’t be easy to pass a serious bill, but if we had a president who was capable of truly inspiring people and who actually believes in government-led clean energy policies, then I think it will happen.

But — and this is where Biden comes in — even if that legislation is strong enough to put this country on the path towards rapid and deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the entire U.S. effort will certainly fall apart if the next president is not able to negotiate a serious international treaty that encompasses all major emitters.

Yet it has become increasingly clear in recent months that achieving a serious, binding international treaty is even more politically implausible a task than passing serious, binding domestic legislation. And that is because Russia has emerged as a country that is likely to be every bit as much an obstacle as China and the United States currently are.

***

The Chinese challenge:

I have written about China extensively already, and no one should underestimate the difficulty of getting them to embrace the necessary reductions in projected emissions and then in absolute emissions.

But everyone I know who knows the country tells me that the Chinese leaders understand that global warming will be catastrophic for them — even if those leaders mistakenly believe they can “go back and solve climate change after they get rich,” which has been the standard procedure for how Western countries dealt with traditional environmental problems. Sadly, that approach won’t work with climate because the climate system almost certainly has tipping points.

Also, the Chinese are capitalists and are already poised to become the leading producer of both solar PV and wind turbines. And they could run their entire country on baseload solar, if they figure out fast enough that it is the renewable with the biggest potential as a primary power source and if they return to their strong energy efficiency policies from decades past.

I cling to the view that Chinese could be brought around if their customers all applied enough pressure to them — assuming of course that those customers, including us, are all prepared to take the necessary measures themselves, which is far from obvious.

***

Russian recalcitrance:

But Russia may be even more problematic, and not just because they are more self-destructively nationalistic than China (or us). Russia does not have a good solar resource. But they do have a lot of coal and oil — and they very much want to stake a claim to the rich oil resources in the Arctic.

Moreover, they may (mistakenly) think global warming is good for them. Since it will create a navigable Arctic and open up “currently inaccessible energy resources,” no less an authority than The Economist has written, “warming is likely to make Russia richer rather than poorer.” Sad — but quite untrue, especially since we are on path to far overshoot any degree of warming that could possibly be beneficial to Russia.

Perhaps the most important climatic tipping point is in Russia — the Siberian tundra. If that defrosts, then avoiding the equivalent of 1,000 ppm atmospheric concentrations of CO2 will be all but impossible. After all the tundra contains more carbon than the atmosphere does, and much of it would likely be released as methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Indeed, we have some evidence that may have already started.

Russia does have a staggering amount of wind potential, but it tends to be in the sparsely populated areas. Russia will need to be convinced that some combination of nuclear, wind, and natural gas can provide all the power it needs, but the even harder task will be convincing them not to use all that oil and coal they have.

Indeed, the great challenge for the world in the next three decades is not so much aggressively deploying low carbon technology — although that would not be easy it would certainly be straightforward both technologically and economically.

The great challenge for the world is political — convincing countries (and states) to leave a lot of the cheap fossil fuel resources they have, especially coal, in the ground, and to agree to import low-carbon electricity from other countries (or states).

That will require not merely strong domestic action by the world’s richest country, the one that has admitted by far the most cumulative amount of carbon dioxide. It will also require global leadership by us, the ability to negotiate one-on-one and collectively with every major country in the world. The Democratic team now has onboard someone who not only gets global warming, but who is certainly one of the most qualified people in the country to help lead that effort from the White House, which is where it must be lead from.

And that makes Biden a great vice presidential choice for Obama, the nation, and the world — that and the fact that picking him signals the Democrats might finally put up a strong fight in the face of the hailstorm of lies and disinformation they face every four years.

***

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

—————

Who’s advising McCain on energy and climate?
Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) on 25 Aug 2008.

Greenwire has also published ($ub. req’d) a detailed list of who is advising McCain on energy and environment policies, which I am reprinting below the fold.

By contrast, McCain’s campaign relies on a small group of longtime friends and advisers. Campaign staff would not comment on why their advisory team isn’t as large as Obama’s, but sources say the staff’s size reflects how frequently the Arizona senator departs from the Republican Party line on environment and energy issues.
I know Woolsey, and he is certainly very solid on energy security issues. But he is the exception. Doug Holtz-Eakin is much more typical of the conservatives McCain is likely to find available to fill his administration. Like his boss, he doesn’t believe in clean technologies and he doesn’t believe in government efforts to promote them.

“I’m not sure a McCain EPA would look any different than an Obama EPA,” quipped Brian Kennedy, a former House Republican leadership aide. “He might even bring Carol Browner back.”
That last quote would be laughable if it weren’t part of a targeted campaign of disinformation. Conservatives — including McCain himself — want the media and independents to believe McCain is liberal on the environment. But his voting record makes clear that he is a hard-core conservative, who happens to believe that global warming is almost as serious as scientists.

The GOP bench is exceedingly thin on genuine green Republicans — and none of them are conservatives. Anyway, here is his team:
***
McCain’s team:
Doug Holtz-Eakin, the campaign’s economic policy adviser, handles all energy and environmental matters. Holtz-Eakin, 50, met McCain during the senator’s unsuccessful 2000 run for president. Holtz-Eakin was then an economics professor and associate director of the Center for Policy Research in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Holtz-Eakin had several roles in the Bush administration during President Bush’s first term. He was chief economist in the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2001 to 2002. He then became director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2005. Holtz-Eakin also served under former President George H.W. Bush as a senior staff economist in the Council of Economic Advisers.
John Raidt is one of McCain’s longest-serving aides and was policy coordinator for McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. On Capitol Hill, Raidt was McCain’s legislative director from 1993 to 1997 and was staff director for the Senate Commerce Committee. Raidt also worked as a staff member on the 9-11 Commission, which investigated the 2001 terrorist attacks in Washington and New York. Click here to watch Raidt at a panel discussion covered by E&ETV.
James Woolsey, 66, a former CIA director, has been advising McCain on environmental and energy issues since the primary campaign. “I just do what I’m asked,” he said in an April interview. Woolsey said he has known McCain for more than 30 years, dating back to McCain’s job as Senate legislative affairs director for the Navy. Woolsey has served under Democratic and Republican presidents, including Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Out of government, his roles include serving as a senior vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton and as a co-author of the National Commission on Energy Policy report. He has a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, a master’s from Oxford University and a law degree from Yale Law School. Click here and here to watch Woolsey’s appearances on OnPoint.
Floyd DesChamps, 45, is a longtime McCain aide for energy and environmental issues on Capitol Hill. “No one else would claim it,” DesChamps joked in a recent interview. DesChamps first joined McCain in 1995 as a fellow and returned two years later for a full-time job on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. DesChamps helped write the global warming cap-and-trade bill McCain introduced with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) in 2001. He updated the bill in 2005 and 2007. DesChamps also handles technology and space issues for McCain. A design engineer by training, DesChamps started his career working on nuclear submarines for Westinghouse Electric Corp. He would later join the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review the use of radioactive materials in medical and industrial devices. DesChamps also worked on nuclear engineering at the Energy Department. He has a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of South Carolina and a master’s degree in engineering management from the University of Maryland.
Rebecca Jensen Tallent is at the center of outreach from the McCain campaign with other informal energy and environmental advisers. Based in Arlington, Va., Tallent, 29, began her Capitol Hill career in 2001 as a legislative assistant in McCain’s Senate office. She moved to Arizona Republican Rep. Jim Kolbe’s office and then returned to McCain in August 2005 to handle immigration issues and reform of the Army Corps of Engineers. Tallent has a political science degree from Carleton College in Northfield, Minn.

***
This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Bush Family Pastor, Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, Attacks McCain and Endorses Obama.
Posted by Mole333, Culture Kitchen, AlterNet, August 15, 2008.
 http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/95246…

Seems the Republicans are losing on the “character” and “values” issues. The pastor and spiritual adviser to the Bush family, the very man who presided at Jenna Bush’s wedding recently, has harshly criticized Republican John McCain for his lack of values and poor character and has endorsed Barack Obama.

Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of the Windsor Village United Methodist Church gave the official benedictions at Bush’s inauguration in 2001 and 2005. Although a controversial figure for his first inaugural benediction in 2001 that explicitly excluded non-Christians, and for his inspiration of Bush’s “faith based initiatives,” there is no question that he is in touch with what Republicans mean when they discuss values and character.

Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell just publicly denounced John McCain’s morals and has endorsed Barack Obama.

This seems to have been precipitated by the furor about John Edwards’ affair, leading Caldwell to point out John McCain’s own infidelities. It was also precipitated by John McCain’s offering up of his wife to a topless and rather obscene (keyword: banana) pageant at the Sturgis bike rally last week. I guess John McCain’s behavior is not pleasing Christians interested in true values rather than mere words.

This is not my issue, writes the AlterNet reporter, “Conservative Christian morals are not necessarily my morals. But if John McCain is losing even George Bush’s own pastor to Barack Obama, well, seems he is in really bad shape.”

Oh, and the response of the McCain team? Attack the pastor:  These people are Obama campaign surrogates. These kinds of personal attacks are disgraceful. This absolutely exposes the hypocrisy of Obama’s claim to represent a ‘new kind of politics.’

So, McCain’s own people are saying that George Bush’s pastor is an Obama surrogate. Well, he said it, not us! Seems a pretty solid condemnation of McCain on the values thing. I guess the Republican response if Colin Powell really is going to endorse Obama (a somewhat far fetched but persistent rumor going around) will be to attack Bush’s former Secretary of State.

This is what attracted me to Obama in the first place: his appeal to such a wide range of Americans. It was a Green Party friend who first advocated Obama to me. Now George Bush’s own pastor and possibly (I doubt it, but we will see) Bush’s own Secretary of State are endorsing Obama. This is one of the widest coalitions of American voters I have ever seen coming together behind Obama. That is what unity is and America can use some unity after 8 years of divisive Bush misrule.

The World Values Survey is available at: www.worldvaluessurvey.org www.happyplanetindex.org

Download the reports
Download the Happy Planet report (2006, pdf)
Download the European Happy Planet report (2007, pdf)

See the Global HPI map:  http://www.happyplanetindex.org/map.htm

In a remark that could be interpreted as casting aspersions on his 71-year-old Republican rival John McCain, Ms Merkel told reporters: “I would say that he is well-equipped – physically, mentally and politically,” but then she also said she would not be in Berlin for Mr Obama’s speech, but added: “Maybe I’ll turn on the television.”

Anne Penketh, the Diplomatic Editor of The Independent of London writes: “Mr Obama, who is the favourite US presidential candidate of Germans by a wide margin according to opinion polls, has chosen Berlin as the setting for the centrepiece of his foreign tour. After talks with Ms Merkel in the morning, he will deliver a speech on transatlantic relations, in which he is expected to reach out to Europeans to repair the damage wrought by the Bush administration since the Iraq war. The speech, at the Victory Column in Tiergarten park in the heart of the city, is expected to attract tens of thousands of people as curious Germans flock to see the man who has been described in Germany as the “black JFK”.” Needless to remind our readers that JFK is close to the heart of the Berliners because of his statement in 1963, at the Brandenburg Gate 45 years ago - “Ich bin ein Berliner.”

The Obama trip has proved diplomatically tricky for the German government because of his status as candidate, not president. Ms Merkel vetoed initial plans to hold the speech at the Brandenburg Gate, where Ronald Reagan urged the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down” the Berlin Wall.

Anticipating that she would discuss Afghanistan when Berlin is under pressure from the Bush administration to send in more German troops, Ms Merkel stressed to reporters: “I will make it clear that Germany is not shirking deeper involvement, but also make very clear our limits in the same way as I do with the current president.”

——————

And Obama?

He will meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel before his public address in Tiergarten Park, which is scheduled for about 1:15 p.m. Washington time.

Although the German government scuttled an early proposal for Obama to speak at Brandenburg Gate, where Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan made famous appearances, the Illinois senator will be sleeping quite near that location. The candidate’s hotel stands adjacent to the historic landmark in Berlin.

Aboard his plane early this morning, someone asked what was the high point of the trip so far. “This,” Obama deadpanned, referring to his 15-minute appearance in the back cabin with reporters. “I had to earn it,” he said. “I said, ‘When do I get a chance to go back and talk to the press?’ “

Amid laughter, he was asked for his second-favorite moment. He paused.

“You know I really get a kick out of spending time with the troops. Their morale is high, but they really appreciate acknowledgement of what they’re doing,” Obama said. “You know, everywhere we went in Afghanistan and Iraq they were just really eager to tell their story, what they were doing. And it was moving. And it’s neat to see the mix. You have a bunch of 20-year olds and then you’ll get a 40-year old or 50-year old who’s in the Guard; a Missouri banker who’s helping to try to set up a agricultural project. You know, that’s pretty spectacular.”

Very few of the troops wanted to talk politics, Obama said, other than to inquire what life on the trail is like. Did he think the troops gave him an honest assessment of the situation in the war zones? “I think if you get them outside of earshot of their commanding officers or, you know, whoever they’re reporting to, and I think a lot of times you do,” he said.

Obama also had high praise for Ambassador Ryan Crocker, calling him “a real unsung hero” in Iraq. “Very savvy but incredibly humble and self-effacing,” he said.

Obama recoiled when a reporter asked whether the Berlin speech was really going to draw a million people, as some reports have estimated. Other estimates have put the number at 100,000. “Let’s tamp down expectations here,” he said.

He said his staff had just informed him that the space in Tiergarten Park was much larger than he originally realized, and joked that he might have to spend the afternoon hours in Germany trying to build an ample crowd.

“This is one of those where we really have no idea what’s going to happen. It’s sort of a crapshoot. I’m happy with the speech though,” he said..

Initially, Obama balked at talking to us about the speech, but he eventually relented. “It’s not a wonkish policy speech,” he said.

Obama’s aides went to great lengths to say the speech event was not a campaign event. Obama said it was not a political rally “in the sense it’s not designed to get them to the polls.”

“Hopefully it will be viewed as a substantive articulation of the relationship I ‘d like to see between the United States and Europe,” he said.

“There’s no doubt that part of what I want to communicate on both sides of the Atlantic is the enormous potential of us restoring a sense of coming together,” he said.

Was the speech is one aspect of proving himself as a presidential candidate? “No,” he replied. “I’m just giving a speech.”

Exelon Corporation

News Releases

July 15, 2008 - Exelon Unveils Roadmap to Eliminate Equivalent of Current Annual Carbon Footprint by 2020

Contact:

Kathleen Cantillon, Corporate Communications

312-394-7417

Nation’s largest electric and gas utility outlines roadmap to reduce, displace or offset 15 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually by 2020 – the equivalent of taking 3 million cars off the road

Exelon Corporation today unveiled a comprehensive environmental plan that sets the standard for environmental action by a major U.S. energy utility. Called Exelon 2020: A Low-Carbon Roadmap, the plan details an enterprise-wide approach and host of initiatives being pursued by the Exelon family of companies to reduce Exelon’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and those of its customers, communities, suppliers and markets.

“The science is overwhelming – climate change is happening now and human activity is the primary cause,” said John W. Rowe, Exelon chairman, president and CEO. “As an early member of the U.S. EPA Climate Leaders Program, Exelon has already embraced a low-carbon strategy. Now, under Exelon 2020, we are committing to a much broader, deeper and sustained effort that will drive our business activities going forward.”

Exelon 2020 sets a goal of reducing, offsetting or displacing more than 15 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions (in carbon dioxide-equivalent terms) per year by 2020. This is more than the company’s current annual carbon footprint and is equivalent to taking nearly 3 million cars off American roads and highways.

Through Exelon 2020, Exelon is pursuing three broad strategies:

• Reduce or offset Exelon’s own carbon footprint by reducing our energy consumption and operating to the highest environmental standards in every aspect of our internal operations and supply chain.
• Help our customers and the communities we serve reduce their greenhouse gas emissions through industry-leading energy efficiency programs and a diverse portfolio of green products and services.
• Offer more low-carbon electricity in the marketplace by expanding the capacity of our existing low-carbon generation fleet and introducing new low-carbon capacity. This will allow Exelon to displace other, higher-emitting sources of generation and thereby reduce overall emissions in the regions where we operate.

Appropriate public policies are crucial to the success of Exelon 2020. The Exelon companies will continue to advocate for effective federal climate change legislation, workable competitive wholesale markets, federal loan guarantees for new nuclear capacity development, stricter energy efficiency standards, workable renewable resource mandates, R&D funding for renewables and standard practices for offsets.

“Without sound, substantial, appropriate and enabling public policy at the federal, regional and state levels, our industry and our society will not be able to address the climate change challenge as quickly, effectively and economically as is required,” Rowe noted.

A sampling of programs under Exelon 2020 includes:

• An initiative to reduce energy consumption across our portfolio of buildings by 25 percent.
• An effort to engage suppliers on environmental initiatives and seek voluntary disclosures of their GHG emissions and energy consumption. Exelon was the first North American utility to join the Carbon Disclosure Project’s Supply Leadership Collaboration, and is leading an industry alliance that will set environmental standards for suppliers to utilities.
• The implementation of a $250 million, three-year energy efficiency plan by ComEd and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. In accordance with 2007 Illinois energy legislation, the program targets residential and commercial energy savings through more-efficient lighting, heating and cooling, appliance recycling, weatherization and energy audits. In Pennsylvania, PECO is working with policymakers to craft a similar plan that would reduce overall electricity consumption as part of the state’s new energy policy.
• An expansion of green product and service offerings to wholesale and retail customers.
• The potential development by Exelon Power of a 600-megawatt combined-cycle natural gas power plant in Pennsylvania that will displace higher-emitting generation.
• The growth of our portfolio of solar, wind, biomass and landfill-gas generation.

The American utility industry accounts for about 40 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. Exelon was one of the first companies in the utility sector to publicly recognize the threat posed by global warming and is a member of the U.S. EPA’s Climate Leaders Program. In 2005, the company made a voluntary commitment under the Climate Leaders Program to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions 8 percent from 2001 levels by the end of 2008 and is on track to exceed that goal. Exelon’s environmental performance has secured its place on the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index since 2006 and Carbon Disclosure Project Climate Disclosure Leadership Index since 2005. In 2007, Exelon was the top-ranked utility in the Leadership Index.

Exelon 2020: A Low Carbon Roadmap is available at www.exeloncorp.com

###

Exelon Corporation is one of the nation’s largest electric utilities with nearly $19 billion in annual revenues. The company has one of the industry’s largest portfolios of electricity generation capacity, with a nationwide reach and strong positions in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. Exelon distributes electricity to approximately 5.4 million customers in northern Illinois and Pennsylvania and natural gas to 480,000 customers in the Philadelphia area. Exelon is headquartered in Chicago and trades on the NYSE under the ticker EXC.
This news release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, that are subject to risks and uncertainties. The factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements include those discussed herein as well as those discussed in (1) Exelon’s 2007 Annual Report on Form 10-K in (a) ITEM 1A. Risk Factors, (b) ITEM 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations and (c) ITEM 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data: Note 19; (2) Exelon’s First Quarter 2008 Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (to be filed on April 24, 2008) in (a) Part II, Other Information, ITEM 1A. Risk Factors and (b) Part I, Financial Information, ITEM 1. Financial Statements: Note 13; and (3) other factors discussed in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission by Exelon Corporation, Exelon Generation Company, LLC, Commonwealth Edison Company, and PECO Energy Company (Companies). Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which apply only as of the date of this presentation. None of the Companies undertakes any obligation to publicly release any revision to its forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this news release.

But You do not see that it owns 19 nuclear reactors at 11 nuclear plants as per Wikipedia something that the Exelon 2020 advertising campaign, that was started July 15, 2008, lacks in its minimum of disclosure department:

Exelon Corporation (NYSE: EXC) is an electricity generating and distributing company headquartered in Chicago. It was created in October, 2000 by the merger of PECO Energy Company and Unicom, of Philadelphia and Chicago respectively. Unicom owned Commonwealth Edison. Exelon has 5.2 million electricity customers and, in the Philadelphia suburbs, 460,000 natural gas customers.

In June, 2005 Exelon had full or majority ownership of 19 nuclear reactors in 11 nuclear power plants.

On June 30, 2005 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the merger of Exelon and Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., a New Jersey utility. Under this merger, Exelon would have become the largest utility in the United States.^[1] The two companies later broke off the agreement^[2] due to pressure put on the NJ Board of Public Utilities by public interest groups, including New Jersey Citizen Action.^[3]The merger sat pending in front of the NJBPU for nineteen months before Exelon concluded that they were fighting a losing battle.^[4]

A shareholder resolution filed by one Exelon shareholder for the Company’s 2008 annual meeting criticizes executive pay levels at the Company.(see [1])

Opinion: “The Death of Reaganomics.”
Thursday 10 July 2008

by: E.J. Dionne, Truthdig.com
 http://www.truthout.org/article/the-deat…

{The article starts with a photo of “Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) asks for rethinking the impact of free-trade.” (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite / AP) But the meat for the bait comes from the Hudson Institute.}
The biggest political story of 2008 is getting little coverage. It involves the collapse of assumptions that have dominated our economic debate for three decades.
Since the Reagan years, free-market cliches have passed for sophisticated economic analysis. But in the current crisis, these ideas are falling, one by one, as even conservatives recognize that capitalism is ailing.
  You know the talking points: Regulation is the problem and deregulation is the solution. The distribution