BONNEVILLE ENVIRONMENTAL FOUNDATION LAUDS EPA COUPLE FOR NATION'S FIRST GREEN POWERED WEDDING

September 29,2001 (Oxon Hill, MD) With a new twist on the old saying, - Something old, something new, something borrowed, something . . . Green - Kate Narburgh and Rich Iovanna are marrying today in what is believed to be the nation's first green-powered wedding.

The bride and groom share strong environmental values, including the desire to offset the polluting effects of activities associated with their wedding ceremony - such as generating electricity to light their wedding festivities taking place today in Oxon Hill, Maryland just outside of Washington, DC.

Green power is electricity generated from clean, renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. Traditional power generation relies on burning fossil fuel, and is the nation's largest industrial source of air pollution - contributing to urban and regional smog, fine particulate pollution, acid deposition, toxic impacts on health and ecosystems, regional haze and global climate change.

Kate Narburgh and Rich Iovanna are both employed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Kate works in EPA's Climate Protection Partnerships Division, where she recently helped launch EPA's Green Power Partnership, a new EPA voluntary program to encourage organizations to purchase green power. So it was fitting that one of Narburgh's colleagues presented a wedding gift of Green Tags from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) - a gift that offsets pollution associated with the electricity used for the wedding by supporting development of new green power.

BEF, a non-profit organization, provides individuals with the opportunity to buy Green Tags - the environmental benefits created when clean, renewable energy displaces burning fossil fuels. Additional information is available at www.greentagsusa.org. The BEF Green Tags program is open to residents of all U.S. states and does not disrupt the current relationship between purchasers of Green Tags and their electricity provider.

"When I'm walking down the aisle, I can feel confident that our wedding isn't contributing to global warming and other environmental problems," said Narburgh. "Rich and I hope that having a green-powered wedding will help raise awareness of how easy it is to choose green power."

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