U.S. needs to be a clean-energy leader

Energy prices, the conflict in the Middle East and growing concern over the progress of global warming have jump-started a long-stalled national conversation about the direction of America's energy policy. The U.S. House of Representatives will take up that conversation as its members debate energy legislation as early as this week. There has never been deeper public support for increasing the amount of power we get from renewable energy.

Americans have begun to demand that their elected officials plot a course for U.S. energy independence. Weary of the nation's reliance on unstable and limited foreign energy sources and Enron-crafted national energy policy, the public has concluded that America must develop environmentally and economically sound solutions to quell our voracious thirst for energy.
The U.S., once the world leader in renewable energy technology, has fallen behind Japan, Germany and Spain. Germany, a country with a land mass the size of Oregon, employs more than 40,000 workers in its wind energy industry; Denmark employs another 20,000. Both of these countries have wind resources that are only a fraction of those in our nation's windiest states. In Germany, the wind energy industry is the second-largest consumer of steel next to the automotive industry.

Communities, counties and states have realized how immense the potential benefits are. Twenty-three states have passed renewable-energy standards, committing to renewable energy targets as high as Oregon's 25 percent by 2025.
Developing our renewable energy resources will create jobs, save consumers money and bolster rural economies. The Union of Concerned Scientists has found that a national standard requiring 20 percent of electric generation from renewable energy sources by the year 2020 will save consumers tens of billions of dollars in lower electricity and natural gas bills; by 2030 those cumulative savings would balloon to $31.8 billion. It also will create more than 180,000 new jobs -- nearly twice as many as generating the same amount of power from fossil fuels -- and cut global warming pollution by 263 million metric tons in 2030, the equivalent of taking 43 million cars off the road.
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