EXCERPT
Certainly, FPL's parent company sought a much higher profile on this issue in
2007.
FPL Group Chief Executive Lew Hay III carved out a portion of the Fortune 250
company's annual shareholders meeting in May to talk about climate change and
testified before Congress in June on placing a fee on carbon as the way to get
industries to clean up. FPL Group also joined the U.S. Climate Action
Partnership - a consortium of 10 businesses and four clean-energy groups - to
push for a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions.
And in September, Hay announced a $2.4 billion
clean-energy program that included the building of a 300-megawatt solar plant in
Florida.
"FPL at the beginning of the year was pushing one of the nation's largest
pulverized coal plants, and at the end of the year is looking at solar
technology," said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for
Clean Energy, based in Knoxville, Tenn.
All of this is in keeping with the nation's heightened attention to renewable
sources of energy. But Florida continues to steadily draw people from other
states, and the demand for energy will continue to increase