August 8, 2006 - Gulf Coast Energy, Inc. announces the election of Mr. James Cummins to their Board of Directors.

James L. Cummins, a certified fisheries and wildlife biologist by training, is Executive Vice-president of The Carbon Fund.  His professional interests include developing and maintaining private, voluntary, incentive, tax, and market‑based solutions to environmental problems.  He conceptualized and authored legislation for the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, which was recently funded at $700 million, and the 2‑million acre Healthy Forests Reserve Program.  He helped develop the Southern strategy for the Healthy Forests Initiative.  He is a partial author of legislation authorizing and funding the Wetland and Grassland reserve programs.  He works extensively in the area of carbon sequestration utilizing native prairies and forests in Alaska, the Lower Mississippi River Valley and the Gulf Coastal Plain.  He worked with Congress to authorize and fund the Northern Bobwhite Quail Initiative, the Theodore Roosevelt National Wildlife Refuge and the Holt Collier National Refuge, the first refuge in the Nation named for an African‑American.  He is Chairman of the Board for the Mississippi Institute For Forest Inventory.  He is a Commissioner for the Mississippi Forestry Commission and a Board Member of the Binational Softwood Lumber Council and the Center For Conservation Incentives.  He is a former Legislative assistant for Senator Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi) and was considered for Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks.  Mr. Cummins has over 90 papers published in magazines, newspapers and trade publications. He has testified before the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives and The White House on numerous forest and natural resource issues.  He enjoys fly fishing, hunting, wildlife photography, horses and working on his family's farm.