LTE: Clean Energy for America

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives took an historic step last week to address America’s economic, energy and climate challenges by passing the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). Unfortunately, Representative Glenn Thompson voted to protect the status quo and against advancing this legislation that will unleash investment in clean energy and, for the first time, put national limits on global warming pollution.

Having passed the House, the bill will move to the Senate where the debate will become even fiercer. At this critical moment, there are several compelling reasons why our Senators should reject the decision by Rep. Thompson and instead choose to support this legislation that will jumpstart our economy and create jobs, especially for struggling Americans.

The opposition— which is fueled by greedy polluters and special interests— has been using vicious distortions and deceitful scare tactics to prevent the bill from moving forward. These are the same groups that let gasoline reach four dollars a gallon last summer and have kept us addicted to oil thereby weakening our national security. These groups want to hold us back from unleashing investment in clean, safe energy—like wind solar and geothermal—that will lead us in a new direction and make us a leader for the 21st century.

A more serious and honest discussion centers on the impact climate legislation will have on jobs, especially for lower-income households. Until recently, this has been a one-sided discussion since we’ve lacked a solid analysis of the gains that lower-income families can have if we shift to clean-energy investment. This issue has finally been addressed by two ground-breaking new reports by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Green for All, the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (PERI).