Congresswoman Hirono Stands With Small Business Community
To Demand Clean Energy Solutions to Climate Crisis
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Amid calls to expand offshore drilling that would deepen America’s dependence on fossil fuels and exacerbate the global warming crisis, Congresswomen Mazie Hirono (D-Hawai‘i), and Yvette Clarke (D-New York), and Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona) called for real energy solutions to global warming at a press conference today outside the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill House Office Building on Capitol Hill.
The U.S Representatives, all members of the House Committee on Small Business, joined three small business owners representing 3,300 small businesses nationwide that are petitioning Congress to enact science-based solutions to the energy crisis that reduce the country’s dependence on oil, solve the climate crisis, create jobs, and leave a clean environment for our children.
“America’s small businesses owners know that global warming solutions are a win-win-win opportunity for the country,” said Hirono. “We can simultaneously create 21st Century jobs, lead internationally in development of clean energy technologies, shake off our dangerous addiction to oil, and address the global warming crisis. I have been deeply impressed by the number of small businesses in my state of Hawaii engaged in the development of innovative technologies. These businesses will respond if the federal government provides leadership.”
Lawyers, carpenters, steelworkers, doctors, farmers, restaurateurs, scientists, mechanics, and teachers, to name just a few of the thousands of small business representatives on the petition from small towns and big cities across the country agree that the future of the country’s entrepreneurs depends on a safe climate.
”The future of America’s small businesses depend on the decisions we make today. Investing in global warming solutions is investing in our economy and our communities. The time to act is now,” said Jim Costigan, a welder from Philadelphia.
CONTACT: Mike Crocker, Greenpeace USA, 202-215-8989
Liz Butler,1Sky, 202-487-4908
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Background
The “Businesses for a Safe Climate Petition” is a joint project of Greenpeace, 1Sky, True Majority, and over 3,300 small business owners from across the country. The business leaders are calling on Congress to create legislation that will move us away from dangerous and dirty fossil fuels, boost the economy, and clean up the environment by:
• Developing more efficient cars and investing in solar, wind and other renewable energy sources that never run out and create jobs in America.
• Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to levels science says is necessary to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of global warming.
• Ending development of new coal plants, the largest contributors of global warming pollution.
Greenpeace is an independent campaign organization, which uses non-violent creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems and to force solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
1Sky. One Climate. One Future. One Chance. 1Sky unites scores of groups and individuals in a collaborative campaign with a single purpose: shifting federal policy in the United States towards the prosperity of a sustainable, low-carbon economy
USAction/TrueMajority.org is made up of 25 state organizations that organize for progressive, grassroots power. We believe our government should Invest in America’s Future – and so we help lead broad coalitions to safely end the war, win quality, affordable health care for all, and reverse America’s upside-down economic priorities. With our state affiliates and our TrueMajority on-line members, we have one million members throughout the country.
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