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WORD COUNT
699
MAY 27, 2009
CONGRESS,
THE ENERGY STUMBLING BLOCK – by Carl Pope
It's scary
how difficult it is persuading this Congress to embrace a new energy
future. What's going on here? Part of the problem is business as usual.
Part is that while Congress understands health care is a national issue,
it still sees energy as a regional one -- one on which each
representative is entitled to be as parochial as he or she desires. But
part of it is a failure on the part of advocates, the media, and the
political leadership to understand that America's energy problems are
rooted in a market that is fundamentally broken and that cannot be fixed
by a single silver bullet such as cap and trade or a carbon tax.
Right now
our government is making tremendous investments in order to build the
green economy, and Congress has a duty
to make sure these investments maximize the benefits to workers and the
economy, as well as the environment. They must
answer President Barack Obama’s call to
action and pass legislation necessary to not just address climate
change, but also to protect workers, and to enact a sweeping overhaul of
our broken, costly, and unsustainable energy system.
The debate in Washington right now
centers on the future of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, a
comprehensive plan currently in the House of Representatives’ Energy and
Commerce Committee.
So far
committee Chairmen Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) have done
heroic work in reaching agreement on the committee around a
comprehensive clean energy and climate plan, a critically important
milestone that has faced seemingly insuperable obstacles. Their
leadership has been truly remarkable. The committee has reached
agreement on a compromise version of the American Clean Energy and
Security Act.
But it is
clear that Big Oil, Big Coal and other polluters are still holding out
for a congressional bailout. They will continue to try to riddle this
legislation with loopholes, water it down, and load it up with hundreds
of billions of dollars in giveaways. They don't want it to deliver a
recovery fueled by the clean energy jobs that America needs.
Too many
of America's utilities are determined to keep providing Americans dirty
electricity from coal. The auto industry is just as determined to feed
us a diet of inefficient, gasoline-powered cars. They've figured out
that the Obama administration and the congressional leadership badly
want to pass a cap and trade bill to send a strong signal before the
Copenhagen climate conference in December. And they are determined to
highjack this urgent moment. Their strategy is clear: Block any real
reform of energy markets. Block any real commitment to reduce our
dependence on oil and coal. Drag their feet to see if they can kill
energy legislation altogether. If that fails, then they'll force a
symbolic "cap and trade" bill that they know they can unravel later.
What's the
solution? We need to tell our leaders that we won't let coal and oil
steal our clean energy future. We want Congress to enact not the shadow
but the substance of the president's energy platform.
A strong
bill must accomplish three things to effectively jumpstart the green
recovery, build the clean energy future, and end our addiction to oil
and coal. It must dramatically ramp up America's transition to cleaner,
cheaper energy sources like wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal; it
must slash energy waste in order to cut emissions quickly and cheaply,
while saving consumers money on their energy bills; and it must close
the global warming pollution loophole by making polluters pay for the
greenhouse gasses they emit.
Strong legislation will also revitalize the manufacturing sector and
create the industries of tomorrow. These new clean energy jobs--building
wind turbines, installing solar panels, renovating buildings to make
them more energy efficient, constructing the smart grid--are jobs that
can't be outsourced.
Our nation
believes in its ability to innovate and solve big problems. We’ve proven
time and time again we can rise to the occasion and address major
environmental challenges without harming the economy: Clean Water Act,
Clean Air Act, acid rain.
America
must act now and become the global leader in clean, renewable energy
technologies to drive U.S. economic growth and reduce global warming
pollution.
--
Carl Pope is executive director of Sierra Club, America’s oldest and
largest grassroots environmental organization --
www.siuerraclub.org
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