For Immediate
Release:
April 21, 2008
Statement of Jeremiah Baumann, Environment Oregon Program Director
On Earth Day, Oregonians take it upon themselves to figure
out ways to reduce their impact on the environment, to reduce their carbon
footprint.
But elected officials,
from Congress to the state Legislature, have a unique responsibility on Earth
Day because they are in a position to reduce our carbon footprint on a much
bigger scale and move us toward energy independence.
We can make our homes more energy efficient one window or
furnace at a time, but Congress and the Legislature can create energy-conservation
programs that save enough electricity to power entire cities. We can choose renewable
energy on our utility bills, but Congress and the Legislature can move all of our
energy to be 25% renewable. We can buy carbon offsets, but only Congress and
the Legislature can require the utilities, the oil companies, and other
industrial polluters to reduce our global warming pollution across the board.
We are fortunate in Oregon
to have leaders that can and do take these important steps.
Secretary Bradbury and Governor Kulongoski have made Oregon a state that leads
the pack on energy independence and global warming solutions. Governor
Kulongoski spurred this state to adopt a Clean Cars program that will put more
hybrids on the road and reduce Oregon’s
global warming pollution. Governor Kulongoski led the effort to establish a 25%
by 2025 renewable energy standard—one of the highest such standards in the
country.
Oregon’s leadership on
energy and global warming has already produced benefits far beyond our state’s
borders—it’s no coincidence that after decades of refusing to improve gas
mileage standards, within a year and a half of Oregon and a dozen other states adopting our
own Clean Cars standards, Congress finally acted.
But our leadership has just begun. It’s just as important
that Oregon
keep leading, because the hardest questions are still ahead of us. Our renewable
energy standard will stop the growth in global warming pollution from our
coal-fired power, but we need more: we need a 20 to 30% reduction by 2020 and an
80% reduction by 2050.
The U.S. Senate is currently considering a global warming bill
that may be a decent first step but does not meet these goals, and coal and oil
lobbyists are working overtime to weaken the bill. Meanwhile, President Bush,
after 7 and a half years of equivocating has deciding this policy on global
warming is to keep pollution increasing until 2025.
The Oregon congressional delegation’s top priority this
Earth Day should be to strengthen the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill, so
that it actually does what scientists tell us is necessary to deal with global
warming, and to declare that they will oppose the bill if gets any weaker.
But the real opportunity is right here in Oregon: Governor Kulongoski has spearheaded
the formation of the Western Climate Initiative, 7 states working together on
their own cap on global warming pollution. This program has the potential to
result in pollution reductions of global significance and the potential to give
Congress a model for real global warming solutions that invest in energy
conservation. The governor is also developing a 21st-century
transportation investment that has the potential to provide a new model for transportation
that reduces global warming and gives Oregonians real transportation options.
The Oregon Legislature should declare global warming their top
priority this Earth Day and should start working now to get ready to implement
a strong cap on global warming pollution, strong investments in energy
conservation, and 21st-century investments in transportation systems
that are part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Oregonians know how to solve global warming: by saving
energy, by moving toward renewable energy, and by choosing alternatives to
driving alone in our cars. As Oregonians work this Earth Day to make a difference
in the movement to solve global warming, we look to Congress and the Legislature
to make these solutions reality.
