Acting today on climate change

The MetroWest Daily News

Acting today on climate change

By Rep. Ed Markey | June 26, 2009 | The MetroWest Daily News

The Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy Security Act (ACES) that the House of Representatives will debate today will kick-start a clean energy revolution that will create millions of new jobs, all while protecting the planet. There is no time to waste. A report released last week by the Obama Administration makes clear that global warming is already impacting all regions of the United States. We must take action today to avoid catastrophic impacts in the future.

Waxman-Markey will reduce dangerous global warming pollution through a cap on large domestic sources of emissions, a program to reduce tropical deforestation, and a variety of other complementary policies. Taken together, these programs will reduce U.S. emissions by over 80 percent from 2005 levels by 2050. This would meet the United States' share of the 50 to 85 percent global reductions by 2050 that the most protective scenarios require according to the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) November 2007 Synthesis Report. To ensure that this ambitious target is met, Waxman-Markey requires 17 percent reductions by 2020, 42 percent reductions by 2030 and 65 percent reductions by 2040.

This historic piece of legislation will transform our energy system and create a clean, secure economy that will generate millions of new jobs as we deploy energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies across the country. Waxman-Markey will provide the most extensive regulation of coal and other fossil fuels ever undertaken by the Environmental Protection Agency. Polluters will no longer be able to dump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for free.

Read the full text at the Daily News Tribune.

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