With BP Spill Firmly In Mind, Speier Urges Immediate Action on Clean Energy Legislation.
Today, Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-San Francisco/San Mateo) released the following statement:
"The oil spill in the Gulf was a tragic wake-up call for our country and the time for excuses is over," said Speier. "How many oil spills do we need before we take decisive action to end our nation's dangerous dependence on oil? Just last week, we saw yet another oil spill, this time in Salt Lake City, Utah. Any oil spill is one too many, and the era of our planet being constantly contaminated by crude oil must come to an end.
"This preventable accident claimed eleven lives and is the worst environmental disaster in American history. It serves as a terrible reminder of our country's dependence on fossil fuels. As long as we remain addicted to oil, both foreign and domestic, spills are inevitable. They've been with us for over a century, and they'll be with us for centuries more until we break that addiction. We cannot avoid them until we replace oil in our energy supply chain with clean, renewable, and sustainable sources of energy.
"By retrofitting just 75,000 homes, we could save the same amount of energy in all of the oil that's currently floating in the Gulf of Mexico. The Home Star legislation the House passed last month would spur the retrofitting of 3.3 million homes. The energy saved from these retrofits would save more than 44 times the energy floating in the Gulf, and would do so at 1/40th of the cost to clean it up.
"The American Clean Energy and Security Act, which the House passed last year, does even more to put us on the path to ending our dependence on fossil fuels. We should use this moment to redouble our efforts and pass clean energy legislation out of Congress this year."