Arizona lawmaker says solar power is good for the environment and economy
WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is urging lawmakers to increase the incentives for solar energy in legislation aimed at reducing global warming.
Giffords, a member of the House Science and Technology Committee, will tell her colleagues in a speech later today that embracing solar energy – “our nation’s most abundant renewable energy resource” – is one of the best ways to confront the significant environmental and economic challenges facing our country.
“Our solar resource is vast, domestic and free,” Giffords will say. “It is clean and generates electricity without greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, the solar power industry is growing and creating thousands of good jobs. For all these reasons, solar is good for America.”
The Arizona lawmaker will deliver the speech this afternoon on the floor of the House. Her remarks echo views expressed in a recent letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.
Giffords told House leaders that the current version of the American Climate and Energy Security Act must include solar energy as part of a diverse portfolio of renewable energy sources. But without specific incentives for electric suppliers to invest in solar energy, Giffords wrote that suppliers will likely get behind other sources of renewable energy.
“Solar will receive little, if any, benefit from this legislation,” she wrote.
The American Climate and Energy Security Act was approved May 21 by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The bill represents the first time Congress is taking up legislation to combat global climate change. It is expected go before the full House in the coming weeks.
Giffords, one of the most passionate champions of solar energy in Congress, supports the main goals of the bill: to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses and encourage a shift away from fossil fuels.
In her letter to Pelosi and Hoyer, the congresswoman praised as “excellent” the bill’s setting of a renewable energy standard – the requirement that the United States receive 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. Solar, she wrote, should comprise a specific portion – or “carve-out” – of the requirement.
“Solar energy is the largest, most accessible renewable energy resource in the world,” Giffords wrote. “It is impossible to imagine a renewable energy future that does not include the utilization of the most abundant energy resource available.”
Click here to read a copy of Giffords’ letter and here to read the text of her speech. Watch her speech here.