Entergy Chairman and CEO Lauds Obama's 2010 Budget

February 27, 2009

Entergy Chairman and CEO J. Wayne Leonard today issued a statement in response to President Barack Obama's newly released fiscal year 2010 budget, which includes the revenues from a comprehensive carbon dioxide, or CO2, cap-and-trade reduction program starting in 2012. Leonard, an early and leading industry advocate of comprehensive climate change legislation, issued the following statement:

"We agree with the President that the time for climate change action is now. We support an economy-wide cap-and-trade approach with an aggressive CO2 reduction trajectory, consistent with an 80 percent reduction by 2050. We support auctioning, rather than allocating, 100 percent of the CO2 allowances, as the President has proposed. We also support his proposal for recycling the auction revenues back into the economy with a significant portion used to protect families, particularly of low and moderate incomes. Study after study has demonstrated that an allowance auction with revenue recycling is the most effective policy for minimizing the economic impacts of a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program. We are pleased that the President's budget proposal is so specific on this very important provision.

"Finally, we support funding for significant research, design and demonstration investments as the President has proposed, particularly in those areas which have the potential for a big global payoff such as coal retrofit carbon capture and electric vehicle battery technology. CO2 reduction is a global problem, and coal plant emissions and automobiles are two very large sources of global CO2 emissions. If the United States can develop affordable technologies to reduce emissions from these sources, we will dramatically improve the odds that the developing world will join in the emission reduction effort and we will also benefit from green technologies to export into a huge global market.

"I applaud President Obama's leadership, and look forward to working with his Administration on this initiative."

Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, and it is the second-largest nuclear generator in the United States. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.7 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of more than $13 billion and approximately 14,300 employees.

SOURCE Entergy Corporation