Thanks to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, travel by delegates on the Sacramento Metro Chamber’s annual Capitol-to-Capitol Trip to Washington, D.C., will be “carbon neutral” in 2008.

For the annual advocacy trip to the nation’s capital April 5-9, SMUD is donating 400 carbon reduction certificates. This means that 372 tons of greenhouse gas credits are retired on behalf of Cap-to-Cap participants. Each certificate is equivalent to emissions generated by a roundtrip flight from between Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

“SMUD’s generosity helps the Metro Chamber call attention to our vital advocacy work this year on Cap-to-Cap,” said Trip Chair Robert Dugan of Granite Construction. “We established a Clean and Green Team that is developing requests for funding and regulatory help. There are many businesses and initiatives focused on developing and supporting technology around clean energy and green practices. And this activity will be a foundation for the region’s economy going forward.”

The Metro Chamber’s Cap-to-Cap Trip and other advocacy activities in the emerging clean technology and green sectors are part of an overall business retention and expansion strategy.

“So making our trip ‘carbon neutral’ is a smart business practice,” Dugan said.

Annually, the Cap-to-Cap Trip is the largest of its kind in the nation. This year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will address the delegates. More than 200 meetings with elected and government officials are set. In preparation, the delegation since before Christmas has been researching and authoring 90 policy issues and appropriations requests and case statements for regional projects and priorities.

How SMUD can make the delegation’s travel “clean” is part of its Carbon Offset Program that any Sacramento resident can access and use.

Via the SMUD website (smudlivegreen.com), participants can calculate their “carbon footprint”—that’s emissions from home electricity, natural gas, gasoline from cars and flights and emissions associated with food. SMUD customers can then buy offsets equaling their total yearly emissions. Dollars paid help fund local offset projects. The first two are dairy digesters in Elk Grove and Galt.

For more information, contact Michael Faust, senior vice president for public policy, at 916-321-9115 or mfasut@metrochamber.org.