Al Gore, at today’s Climate and Energy Subcommittee hearing on the Waxman-Markey bill (American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009):
Let me highlight a few items in the bill that I believe to be of particular importance:
It promotes the rapid introduction of the clean and renewable technologies that will create new jobs and reduce our reliance on carbon-based fuels.
It is time to close the carbon loophole and begin the steep reductions we need to make in the pollution that causes global warming.
It helps us use energy more efficiently and transmit it over a secure, modernized, digital smart grid system.
Moreover, the best way to secure a global agreement that guarantees that other nations will also reduce their global warming pollution is for the U.S. to lead the world in meeting this historic challenge. The United States is the world’s leader. We are the only nation in the world that can. Once we find the moral courage to take on this issue, the rest of the world will come along. Now is the time to act before the world gathers in Copenhagen this December to solve the crisis. Not next year, this year.
