Energy Policy

As Congress heats up the debate on Cap & Trade legislation are we to expect the same productivity we have seen for the past year on Health Care Reform?

The issue of producing clean, sustainable renewable energy while lessening dependence on foreign sources for our energy requirements seems pretty straight forward to us. We’re not sure if Cap & Trade is the most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, we do know that 28 States have enacted Renewable Electricity Standards where certain percentages of electricity come from renewable resources such as the sun and wind. Do we need national legislation to get our country moving forward on this issue - it appears that is what it will take as there are 50 States and way too many special interests trying to impede the implementation of renewable energy.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders today held a press conference announcing a solar initiative.

Solar Industry Leaders to Support

Green Job Chairman’s Solar Legislation

Environment America to Roll Out Report on Solar Industry

WASHINGTON, March 9 – Sen. Bernie Sanders and environmental advocates will hold a press conference on solar energy at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, March 9 at the Senate Swamp.

Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate’s green jobs subcommittee, will discuss his legislation to encourage the installation of 10 million solar systems on the rooftops of homes and businesses over the next decade.

Environment America will release a report, Building a Solar Future: Repowering America’s Homes, Businesses and Industry with Solar Energy, highlighting the potential of solar energy and the many ways that solar power can transform life by enhancing energy security and reducing pollution.

Who: Senator Bernie Sanders; Sean Garren, clean energy advocate for Environment America; James Resor, chief financial officer of groSolar (White River Junction, Vt.); Anthony Clifford, chief executive officer of Standard Solar (Gaithersburg, Md.); and Kathy Weiss, vice president at First Solar (Tempe, Ariz.).

What: News Conference on Solar Legislation and Report on the Solar Industry

When: 10 a.m., Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Where: Senate Swamp, across from the Capitol’s Senate Steps (map here).

Contact: Michael Briggs or Will Wiquist at 202-224-5141

This is the type of activity we need from Congress to address the 6 Billion tons of carbon emissions we’re putting into the environment. Senator Sanders, you continue to do the right things for the people of this country.

OK folks - the snow storm is gone. Let’s hope this time off enabled Congress to clear their respective heads and get down to the business - not as usual, but in the best interest of the people of this country.

Quit playing games and do your jobs to address the issues of jobs, the economy, health care reform, and an energy policy for clean, renewable energy.

Take a look at this release from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders - tell me we don’t need health care reform!

It Never Ends: Health Insurance Profits Soar

WASHINGTON, February 12 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today blasted the country’s five largest health insurance companies that posted $12.2 billion in profits last year, 56 percent more than in 2008.

“In the midst of the worst recession in memory, with working families struggling to keep their heads above water, insurance companies are siphoning more and more profits out of American consumers,” said Sanders, a member of the Senate health committee.

“These horrendous rate increases will not only impact millions of individuals, but make our entire economy less competitive,” he added. “This outrage is more evidence, as if any were needed, that we cannot stop fighting to reform the health care system in the United States.”

Health Care for America Now conducted a study of public records and found that WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group, Cigna Corp., Aetna Inc. and Humana Inc. covered 2.7 million fewer people than they did the year before.  Some of the insurers actually cut the proportion of premiums that went to medical care and put more into salaries and profits.

The companies’ 2009 profits soared while insurers raised premiums and denied coverage to millions of Americans.

WellPoint’s profit margin of 7.2 percent was the highest of the five big insurers.  Anthem Blue Cross, a California subsidiary of WellPoint, has come under fire for jacking up premiums by as much as 39 percent this year on some individual health policies.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius insisted that the company justify the rate increase in detail. “Look,” Sen. Sanders said, “insurance companies are ripping off the American people from coast to coast. It is absolutely appropriate for the secretary of Health and Human Services to call them out on that.”

Contact: Michael Briggs or Will Wiquist (202) 224-5141

As we all struggle through this economy,  jobs are on everyone’s wish list. One area we believe can have a significant impact is by having a nationwide program in full gear that encourages the implementation of renewable energy technologies like PV (photovoltaic) solar, wind turbines, PV Solar thermal (using the sun for heating hot water). Repower America has been pushing this agenda, and now Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced a bill to fund a solar initiative. These are jobs that can not be exported to other countries. Way to go Senator Sanders - clean energy generation will address major economic and environmental issues!

Sanders Introduces Major Solar Energy Initiative

WASHINGTON, February 4 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate’s green jobs subcommittee, today introduced legislation with nine cosponsors to encourage the installation of 10 million solar systems on the rooftops of homes and businesses over the next decade.

“At a time when we spend $350 billion importing oil from Saudi Arabia and other countries every year, the United States must move away from foreign oil to energy independence,” Sanders said. “A dramatic expansion of solar power is a clean and economical way to help break our dependence on foreign oil, reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, improve our geopolitical position, and create good-paying green jobs.”

At a Senate committee hearing today, Sanders questioned Energy Secretary Steven Chu about President Obama’s budget for next year. The White House requested $2.4 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. The requested 5 percent boost overall included a 22 percent increase for solar power.

The potential for solar power also was the subject of testimony last week before Sanders’ green jobs subcommittee by Jeff Wolfe, chief executive officer of groSolar in White River Junction, Vt. Wolfe said Sanders’ bill “would help homeowners and small businesses stabilize their energy costs.”

Sanders’ bill would authorize rebates which, along with other incentives, would cover up to half the cost of the 10 million solar power systems and 200,000 water heating systems. Non-profit groups and state and local governments also would be eligible. The legislation would ensure that participating homeowners and businesses also receive information on incentives to improve energy efficiency.

Sanders said a recent report shows that solar power could help make every state more energy independent if solar units were installed on available rooftop space, because every state can meet 10 percent or more of its electricity needs just through rooftop solar. Moreover, because solar energy creates more jobs per megawatt than other energy sources. Sanders’ bill could create hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next ten years in the solar industry.

The legislation’s cosponsors include Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.),  Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.).

Sanders’ measure is patterned after successful state programs promoting solar energy in New Jersey and California, where prices have fallen as the number of solar units increased.

To read a copy of the bill, click here.

Contact: Michael Briggs or Will Wiquist at (202) 224-5141.

Today the White House released the fiscal year 2011 Budget. The numbers call for a $3.8 Trillion dollar budget that projects an estimated $1.2 Trillion dollar deficit.

Some key areas getting financial attention are: Job Creation; Small Business tax credits; support of  our Educational system, the military and clean energy. We agree that addressing each of these will begin to put a fix on issues that have all too long been ignored. Not much being said about Health Care as it relates to this budget - we wonder why.

Now the real question - What will Congress do to, and with this budget?

President Obama talks tonight about the State of the Union - our country.

All of us who feel the pain of an economic meltdown; lost jobs; either no health care or out of control health costs; an educational system being short changed by just about every State; a fractured energy policy that should be based upon clean, renewable energy generation to lessen foreign dependence and two wars that take our lives while continuing to drain our resources - we pretty much know the State of the Union these days.

President Obama, tonight we hope to hear you say your administration and the 535 people in Congress are going to start acting in the best interest of the people who sent you all to represent us and not special interest lobbyists.

Please, we do not need anymore 2,000 page bills that cover everything but the core issue. Give us legislation that is straight forward, deals only with the issue and requires a simple yes or no vote by Congress. Then and only then will we have real Transparency and Accountability of our elected representation.

Now is the time to deliver on the promise to change the ways Washington does business. Do this for our children and grand children - they will all thank us for being part of the solution rather than the problem.

Could this be the Audacity Of Hope that you wrote about?

A Happy New Year to All!

We would like to thank the folks in Washington that actually represented the People and not the lobbyists over the past year.

Our wish for the New Year and the next decade is that the 535 people in Washington craft legislation that is intended to be in the best interests of the people that elected them. The issues of getting our Economy back on track; an Energy Strategy that is meaningful to us now and future generations; a Health Care system that truly gives the people quality care while putting a stop to costs that are out of control; supporting an Educational System that will turn out the next generation (s) of world leaders in every field; and a peaceful decade that reduces or eliminates the pain and costs resultant of Wars that Nobody Wins.

Our New Years wish is that the House, Senate and Administration spend our money as if it were theirs and dedicate our money to expeditures of the aforementioned issues and not lobby driven special interests.

Mired in the most significant economic downturn since the 1930’s, we have an opportunity that can put people to work and create a new era of economic prosperity.

Each time we have had an economic crisis, there has been a development (private and/or governmental) that gave us new life. Examples of this were the New Deal and World War II preparation; building the interstate highway system; and the proliferation of the Internet and the resultant dot com technology boom. The aforementioned developments turned an economic crisis into a new era of prosperity creating jobs.

We hear that 70% of our economy is based upon consumer spending. When people don’t have, or are concerned about having a job, they don’t spend. We have reached a point in our country’s life cycle that calls for a paradigm shift away from the 70% consumer spending model. We need to begin building the foundation of a new model based less on consumer spending and more on consumer conservation.

Every single day, 8,000 people are turning 60 years old – the baby boomers – the largest segment of the population that has shaped our economic profile since the end of World War II. When people enter, what I call the “conservation stage” of their life, they are not spending as in the prime earning years of their life cycle. The children and grand children of the baby boomers do not appreciate the greed and waste exhibited by past generations – the deficits and debt with which they will have to deal.

This new model is about how we consume, conserve and create energy with renewable, clean resources. This is the single most significant development that can lift our economy out of the tank and usher in a new era of prosperity and job growth.

This will take a cooperative effort by government and the private sector to stimulate (economic incentives) an energy strategy based upon the reduction and eventual elimination of fossil fuel based energy. Every individual, business and government entity will economically benefit from a comprehensive strategy of energy conservation and the generation of clean, renewable energy. The added benefit of this strategy is the massive reduction in the amount of carbon dioxide we have been emitting into our environment that may be the cause of the disruption in our climate - I won’t call it “global warming” yet.

Let’s all get on board and together revitalize our economy based upon our new found energy resources, like the sun and the wind.

Oil and gas prices are escalating once again at a rapid rate ($2.75 a gallon around here). Yesterday, interest rates rocketed up in reaction to bond prices. In this fragile economy, that has us hanging on the edge, we just can not afford to have the impact of these two occurrences crush any chance we have of getting through this economic mess.

How much time and money are we going to spend in Washington debating whether or not the most qualified individual in decades, Sonia Sotomayor, is going to be confirmed to the Supreme Court?

Folks in Washington - quit wasting our time and money on this. Confirm Ms. Sotomayor and get onto the priorities that We The People are facing every day.

We want our Representation putting their efforts into addressing how we can continue to afford to drive to work (for those of us still with jobs). Please put your efforts into helping us keep our homes and businesses without the financial industry crippling us.

We are hearing an increasing number of people saying they are scared, they can’t sleep at night, they don’t know what is going to happen. They are seeing everything they worked their entire life for in jeopardy.

We understand this is a very complex economic time - unlike anything we’ve seen in our life time. However we ask you to please prioritize your time and efforts to understanding how we got here and what needs to be done to get out of here while not letting this erode any further.

Please, don’t put your time, energy and our money into ideological, political gamesmanship any longer. We The People can not afford to have this type of political driven actions any longer.

Remember, you are in Washington for the people.