Inslee response to Bush climate speech

April 16, 2008

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), a congressional expert on global warming and clean-energy technologies, made the following statement in response to the president’s Rose Garden speech this afternoon:

“Today, the president offered a can’t-do plan for a can-do people.

“He has been silent for so long, we all were thirsty for his climate proposal.  Some may take any drop of water as the solution.  But the tidbits offered today were a mirage that did nothing to quench our thirst.

“The president’s emissions goals put us on a path to carbon-dioxide concentrations that would have a 50-50 chance of dooming 30 percent of the world’s species.  They also would set us on a path for economic loss to clean-energy markets in Europe.

“Rather than inadequate goals, we need a bold, comprehensive plan.  This plan should center around an aggressive cap on U.S. emissions that guarantees greenhouse-gas pollution would be limited at levels that scientists believe would reduce our risk of catastrophic climate change.

“Americans have the will, talent and can-do spirit to meet or exceed an aggressive limit on carbon-dioxide emissions.  The president needs to back a plan that will challenge us, like President Kennedy did in 1961 when he challenged us to land a man on the moon.

“His speech today was a drought of vision and leadership.  Congress will continue to pick up the mantle.”

Inslee is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, House Natural Resources Committee and Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.  His hallmark clean-energy bill, the New Apollo Energy Act, first was filed in the House almost three years ago.  Last fall, he co-authored a book entitled “Apollo’s Fire: Igniting America’s Clean Energy Economy.”