For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jamie Radice / Erika Masonhall
(202)547-0001
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- America faces a dangerous long-term energy crisis. The country's addiction to carbon-based fuels -- especially imported oil -- threatens its national security, its economic vitality, and its environmental health. Yet the Bush administration and the Republican Congress have been shirking their responsibility to spur change and defiantly clinging to the status quo. The Progressive Policy Institute argues in a new report that it is time for progressives to fill the leadership void by offering a realistic plan that begins in the here and now and leads quickly to a clean energy future.
The report, entitled A Progressive Energy Platform, by Jan Mazurek, Roger Ballentine, Randolph Court and Will Marshall, outlines such a plan. It would address America's two distinct energy needs: fuel for transportation and power to generate electricity.
The authors propose a series of steps to harness market forces and American ingenuity as instruments to hasten the development of a post-oil economy that is strategically, economically, and environmentally sustainable. Their proposals include:
- Capping U.S. carbon emissions -- now: Establishing a national cap-and-trade regulatory system to control carbon dioxide emissions would create a profit motive for companies to burn less oil and other fossil fuels.
- Capturing the "clean tech" market: Progressives should champion cutting-edge research and innovation, tax incentives, and investments that will focus entrepreneurial attention on developing and marketing all manner of energy-efficient "green technologies," and encourage auto manufacturers to dramatically step up the production of clean vehicles.
- Diversifying energy sources: The report calls for expanding the use of clean-burning natural gas while also supporting investments in coal gasification, biomass, and other technologies that can be used to generate electricity with fewer greenhouse emissions.
- Aggressively expanding the use of renewable energy: Progressives should demand that the federal government create a national renewable portfolio standard for electric utilities and endorse a goal of bringing 100,000 new megawatts of clean power online by 2020.
The authors emphasize that the state of our country's energy policy is an urgent problem demanding immediate action. "America's national security, economic vitality, and environmental health demand that the country neither accept today's energy policy status quo, nor passively wait for some distant wholesale shift to a clean future."
Senator Tom Carper: "America's safety and prosperity depend on our ability to declare our energy independence and end our reliance on foreign oil. A Progressive Energy Platform offers a comprehensive strategy on how to aggressively address many of our country's energy needs. This report offers several important steps that would immediately begin to improve our country's energy policy and set us on the right course."
The Progressive Policy Institute's mission is to define and promote a new progressive politics for America in the 21st century. Through its research, policies, and commentary, the Institute is fashioning a new governing philosophy and an agenda for public innovation geared to the Information Age. For additional information, Web users may access the Progressive Policy Institute, at www.ppionline.org, or contact PPI's press office at (202) 547-0001.
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