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The Promise of a New Energy Future

With gas prices passing $3 per gallon and growing public concern about energy and America’s over-dependence on oil, we have an unprecedented opportunity to put America on a new energy path at both the federal and state level.

Americans are demanding cars with better gas mileage, and overwhelmingly support improving energy conservation and increasing renewable energy.

For decades, government policy has favored powerful energy interests over energy conservation and renewable energy technology. But now there’s momentum for change both nationally and in Pennsylvania.

We know that America can dramatically reduce our dependence on oil and move to clean renewable energy sources. We can make cars that go 100 miles on a gallon of gas. Wind turbines and solar panels can supply power to millions of homes and businesses, and we can make high-performance products and building that use a fraction of the energy we use today.

However, in order to solve our energy problems, we need to start now.

That is why this fall we are launching an effort to promote real solutions to our country’s energy problems that delivers on the promise of a new energy future.

The Promise of a New Energy Future  

America and Pennsylvania have the know-how to move us away from our dependence on oil and toward a cleaner, more secure future.  We need a national and statewide commitment to a new energy strategy that prioritizes our national security, our environment and our children’s futures over Big Oil and other powerful interests. We are hoping that you will endorse the following platform which will help deliver on the promise of a new energy future.

• Reduce our dependence on oil by saving one-third of the oil Pennsylvania uses today by 2025. This can be accomplished through enactment of the Clean Vehicles Program, increased support for the state’s mass transportation systems, and deployment of clean alternative fuels. At the federal level, we should aim to save one-third of the oil we use today by 2025 (7 million barrels per day).
• Harness clean, renewable, homegrown energy sources like wind, solar and farm-based bio-fuels for at least a quarter of all energy needs by 2025. Nationally, we have virtually limitless potential to generate electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind power and solar power.  In fact, the wind that blows through America’s plains is enough to meet the electricity needs of the entire country. In Pennsylvania, we should boost the Tier 1 requirement of the state’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard to 25% by 2025.   We also can power our cars with renewable energy by using energy crops such as switchgrass and agricultural by-products. 
• Save energy with high performance homes, buildings and appliances so that by 2025 we use 10 percent less energy than we do today, both nationally and in Pennsylvania. Dramatic improvements in energy efficiency are possible in virtually every aspect of our lives.  Through building codes, efficiency standards for appliances and industrial equipment, and incentives for the purchase of energy efficient products, we can transform the way we consume energy.  
• Invest in a New Energy Future.  By committing $30 billion over the next 10 years to the New Energy for America Initiative, we could triple research and development funding for the energy-saving and renewable technologies we need to achieve these goals. In Pennsylvania, by committing increased resources over the next 10 years to this initiative, we could—at a minimum—quadruple research and development funding.

The goal of the New Energy Future campaign is to harness support for real energy solutions that will commitment our nation and our state to reducing our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels and to dramatically increase the amount of clean renewable energy we use to power our lives. By demonstrating broad support, we can create the political will to solve Americas growing energy problems.

That is why we are asking for your support by endorsing the Promise of a New Energy Future and joining us this fall in working to move America and Pennsylvania towards a new energy future. Here are some of the ways to get involved:

• Endorse the Promise of a New Energy Future
• Activate your membership by sending out an announcement about the campaign to your email list. Encourage your members to sign the online petition asking candidates to support The Promise of a New Energy Future and to attend campaign events in order to ask the candidates where they stand.
• Publicly show your support by attending one of the many events we will host to launch the campaign across the country, cosigning op-eds, and submitting letters to the editor.
• Build the coalition by asking all the groups that you work with to endorse the campaign, and get involved.
• Attend meetings with the candidates to directly call on them to commit to a new energy future.