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Tammy Baldwin for Congress Blog
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Location: Blogs Tammy BaldwinEnvironment |
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| Posted by: Tammy Baldwin |
11/5/2007 7:07 PM |
Being an American means having a commitment to our collective well-being, rather than each struggling to get his or her own. We have a responsibility to future generations as well.
Consequently, we must all value and care for our environment. Together, we should work to preserve and protect our shared natural resources. Clean air and water, and the development and use of clean energy sources, are essential.
Investment in renewable energy sources, combined with stricter emission standards, are two key elements in reducing the harmful greenhouse gasses that increase the earth’s temperature.
As I said in my email last week (if you are not on my mailing list, you can join here), Congress is taking up the dual challenges of energy independence and global warming. The effort is long overdue and drastically needed.
In July, an endurance swimmer braved the water at the North Pole, without a wetsuit, to prove this point. Granted, the Pole is not yet a tropical vacation destination, but this swimmer demonstrated that we must act now to slow, stop, and reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions.
With my seat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, I am advocating to do just that.
For example, among my contributions to the energy bill, I added language to increase industrial and home energy efficiency standards, encourage advanced battery and plug-in hybrid programs, minimize exposure to mercury in energy efficient light bulbs, and study the adequacy of railroad transportation for domestically-produced renewable fuel.
But there is much more work to do. As we move toward consideration of a larger climate change bill, there remain a number of policy decisions still to be answered. We urgently need a large-scale energy project because conserving and creating energy and preserving our natural resources are vital to our future on earth.
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