President Obama, Congress Help Move America Toward Comprehensive Climate Action

In his January 20 inaugural speech, President Obama outlined the need to “roll back the specter of a warming planet” and he plans to work with Congress to pass comprehensive legislation to invest in alternative and renewable energy, end our addiction to foreign oil, address the global climate crisis and create millions of new jobs.

The Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan will:

Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.

• Within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.
• Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars on the road by 2015, cars that are built here in America.
• Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.
• To read more about the New Energy for America plan, click here.

In the legislative branch, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi issued a statement detailing a timeline to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation out of the Energy and Commerce Committee by Memorial Day.

“Chairman Waxman has set an aggressive timetable for action to reduce global warming and our dependence on foreign oil. I share his sense of urgency and his belief that we cannot afford another year of delay…I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House, our colleagues in the Senate, and President Obama to halt the grave threat of climate change,” Pelosi said in a statement.