Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont set the tone for the gathering this week of our nation's state utility regulators in a posh hotel astride Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Welch represents the home state of David Coen, Vermont regulator and new president of NARUC.

"What you do does matter," Welch said. "Your work is at the leading edge of energy policy... It leads the way for those of us in Congress."

And Sen. Catherine Pugh, state senator in Maryland, also underscored the reliance of state lawmakers on guidance from their regulatory brethren. Give state legislators a glossary of terms so they are not blindsided by the inner meaning of the labels and acronyms flying around the energy policy debate - or, as Pugh put it, "so we don't seem as clueless as many of us are."

And for those remaining few skeptics on the global warming front, nuclear power plant king John Rowe, of Exelon, declared, "We believe the scince on glabal warming is simply overwhelming." And, "leaving he problem unsolved does not work." What must be feared is a lack of national policy regarding curbing greenhouse gas emissions - "state after state doing something in a piecemeal way."

The real meat and potatoes of the gathering, however, was served up by Ken Ostrowski, director of McKinsey & Co., who explained the earthquake implications of a recently completed study by his firm. An investment of $520 billion in energy efficiency would eliminate $1.2 trillion in energy waste, cut energy use by 23 percent AND reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1.1 gigatons. Now why isn't that something climate change skeptics can rally around? Even if you think global warming is a crazy leftwing plot to distract us while medicine is socialized, why not spend $1 to achieve $2 of energy savings?

Said Ken, these savings require "no change in lifestyle.... Even if we get 80 percent or 50 percent [of these benefits] let's realize how large an opportunity is out there."

These calculations relate to NON-TRANSPORT energy use. The dawn of an age of electricity-powered transport will only increase the energy savings and further slash greenhouse gas emissions.