Anaerobe Systems CEO Mike Cox welcomed Congressman Jerry
McNerney to his lakeside home Saturday afternoon for a fundraiser
that took in $10,000 for the Pleasanton Democrat’s 2008 re-election
campaign.
Morgan Hill – Anaerobe Systems CEO Mike Cox welcomed Congressman Jerry McNerney to his lakeside home Saturday afternoon for a fundraiser that took in $10,000 for the Pleasanton Democrat’s 2008 re-election campaign.
Cox, a Republican, backed McNerney in his surprising win over incumbent Richard Pombo in the 11th Congressional District race last November. He focused the event not on red or blue politics, but on green energy as a solution to global warming.
“Jerry’s behind renewable energy, and I’m behind Jerry,” said Cox, a microbiologist who has developed technology to convert sugar into hydrogen – one of the cleanest fuels known on Earth. Morgan Hill-based Anaerobe hopes to market the technology – now passing through pilot stages – to food-processing plants that can use organic byproducts to produce energy.
“There’s a real need to increase people’s awareness of renewable energy and where we are in the fossil fuel era,” Cox said, alluding to what some scientists think could be the end of abundant oil in the next 50 to 100 years.
As former Vice President Al Gore’s slide show – made famous by his 2006 Oscar-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” – continues to be shown across the country, McNerney hopes the new House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming can also spread information about melting ice caps and green technologies.
“We’re going to make this issue as public as possible,” said McNerney, 55, an engineer and energy specialist who was assigned to the committee by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. “We’re going to use the Internet, make documentaries and show people what’s happening in the world.”
The roughly 100 invited guests at Cox’s Shadow Hills home paid between $50 and $1,000 a ticket to attend Saturday’s luncheon, which was held under white tents in the back yard.
Among the guests were Congressman Mike Honda, D-San Jose; Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate, Santa Clara Valley Water District Director Rosemary Kamei, San Martin Neighborhood Alliance President Sylvia Hamilton, Open Space Authority Director Alex Kennett, Morgan Hill City Councilman Greg Sellers and former Morgan Hill Mayor Dennis Kennedy.
Tate, a Democrat, gave a brief introduction before Honda and McNerney spoke.
“Regardless of whether he’s a Democrat or a Republican, Jerry McNerney is an expert on renewable energy,” Tate said later during the event. “It’s just very fortuitous that when the country needs that kind of leadership, we elected him to take a leadership role.”
A number of Republicans like Cox who support McNerney’s green policies attended the fundraiser, including San Martin resident Stu Carson.
“I never voted for a Democrat in my entire life,” Carson said. “But when I learned from Mike Cox about the crisis this country and the world is facing around energy, I know the challenge is to try to get from oil to green energy. And I look at Mike like the next Thomas Edison.”
Morgan Hill is a small part of the 11th district, which encompasses parts of San Joaquin, Alameda, Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties. But McNerney’s fourth visit since last November indicates strong ties to his South County supporters.
“They were a great support during the election,” said McNerney, who has raised about $450,000 for his 2008 re-election campaign. “There’s great technology being developed here and I think it’s a very important part of the district.”
McNerney spent $2.5 million between 2004 and 2006 to defeat Pombo.
It is rumored that State Assemblyman Guy Houston, R-San Ramon, and State Sen. Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley, are considering challenging McNerney for the seat in 2008.
