- Letter
U.S. Climate Alliance Asks Congress to Protect Critical Funding for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Research and Development
February 16, 2018
American innovation in clean energy is essential to delivering solutions to today’s climate and energy challenges, and maintaining America’s energy dominance.
The United States Climate Alliance has sent a letter to leaders in the Senate and House Appropriations Committees requesting that Congress protect critical funding for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. Supporting energy innovation is essential to America’s energy transformation and our battle against climate change.
The Alliance believes that investing in renewable energy research is essential to meeting domestic energy demand, creating jobs, and growing our economy. The proposed approximate 70 percent cut to the Department of Energy’s energy efficiency and renewable energy research budget would be disastrous. These substantial cuts to the Department’s budget would slow the American innovation needed to maintain America’s energy dominance, and deliver the solutions to today’s climate and renewable energy challenges.
About the Alliance
Launched on June 1, 2017 by the governors of Washington, New York, and California to help fill the void left by President Trump’s initial decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the Alliance has grown to include 24 governors from across the U.S. representing approximately 60% of the U.S. economy and 55% of the U.S. population. Governors in the Alliance have pledged to collectively reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26-28% by 2025, 50-52% by 2030, and 61-66% by 2035, all below 2005 levels, and collectively achieve overall net-zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as practicable, and no later than 2050.
The Alliance’s states and territories will continue to advance innovative and impactful climate solutions to grow the economy, create jobs, and protect public health, and have a long record of action and results. In fact, the Alliance reduced its collective net greenhouse gas emissions by 19% between 2005 and 2022, while increasing collective GDP by 30%, and is on track to meet its near-term climate goal by reducing collective GHG emissions 26% below 2005 levels by 2025. The coalition’s states and territories are employing more workers in the clean energy sector, achieving lower levels of dangerous air pollutants, and preparing more effectively for climate impacts and executing more pre-disaster planning than the rest of the country.
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