At the Midwestern Governors Association's November 2007 Energy Summit, Midwestern governors and the Premier of Manitoba signed ambitious regional goals to provide leadership on energy security and climate stewardship, and to stimulate economic development and job creation across the region.
Since that time, the MGA states have appointed representatives to advisory groups charged with developing recommendations for achieving the agreed upon goals and objectives and to identify more precisely what Midwestern states should do to secure their energy future. Three of these groups – energy efficiency, renewable electricity and advanced coal with carbon capture, and bioeconomy and transportation – have been meeting since 2008. An additional advisory group, formed in 2009, focuses on the creation and retention of jobs in the new energy economy.
In October 2009, the region's governors convened in Detroit for a Jobs and Energy Forum where they released the Jobs Platform, Infrastructure Accord, and Energy Roadmap documents to update previous activities.
The MGA's Energy Initiative documents related to energy efficiency include [off-site pdf links]:
