I love that the president of the United States is asking us for our opinions. How refreshing is that? You can share your ideas by clicking here.
I instinctively knew what I wanted to tell him, right away. In fact, it took much less time to figure out his resolution than it did to decide on no new spandex for myself.
I want the White House to focus on getting clean energy and climate legislation passed in the Senate as soon as possible.
We need to get moving on climate solutions NOW. I believe this as a mother–I don’t want to my children to deal with acute water shortages or flooded homes. I need this as a taxpayer–clean energy investments and domestic manufacturing jobs are just the kind of jumpstart our economy desperately needs. I understand this as a Christian – we should be good stewards of the planet that God gave us.
And as a political junkie my gut also tells me that we will never have a better political environment for passing a clean energy and climate bill than the moment we have right now. This is our moment.
What could be gained by putting off climate change legislation? Are the issues going to change? Is climate going to become an easier problem to solve? Are big polluters going to stop opposing action? Are Democrats going to control more than 60 seats in the Senate?
This is a wake up call, one that I hope the handful of senators (featured in a recent Politico story) hears. These folks would like to delay the bill to some indefinite time in the future. Can someone please explain to me exactly how it is going to get easier in the future? .
A few senators have said they think we should delay the climate vote in favor of a jobs bill, but the effervescent truth is the climate bill is a jobs bill. According to a recent study from the University of California, we will generate nearly 2 million additional jobs by investing in clean and sustainable energy.
These smart opportunities will be spread across all 50 states. Let’s take Ohio. UMass has estimated that Ohio alone could produce almost 70,000 net new jobs–opportunities for steelworks who build wind turbines, construction workers who retrofit buildings to make them more energy efficient, and software engineers who do energy audits.
We need these jobs now, not in 2011.
Americans want progress. That’s what we voted for in the last election, but we need to see some signs of movement and success. Saving the planet and creating jobs at the same time sounds pretty darn successful to me. We might just be inspired to reward the senators who deliver that success with our votes come November.
In the meantime, tell the White House what you want it to achieve this year.
I am resolved.
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