Senate Democrats are asking all 50 governors to help create a new national energy policy that encourages “clean energy technologies,” finds funding for new infrastructure, and cuts pollution.
Every Senate Democrat plus Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, sent letters to every governor in a bid to help fulfill the goals of the Obama administration’s Quadrennial Energy Review. That review found that state and local laws and regulations are making it harder to modernize the country’s energy infrastructure, and the Democratic letter said governors need to help reduce these barriers.
The only senator who regularly caucuses with Democrats not on the letter is Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who is running for president as a Democrat.
“[W]e recognize that the success of our efforts to address today’s challenges and tomorrow’s opportunities will continue to rely on a foundational partnership between federal policymakers and states,” the letter said. “As such, we seek your input on policies consistent with these shared principles, to help guide our consideration of reasonable, commonsense updates to our nation’s energy policy.”
Democrats on the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee said they have five main goals: finding ways to invest in clean energy, giving consumers more choices, modernizing infrastructure, cutting pollution and investing in more research. Climate change is an underlying theme of the effort.
“[W]e believe the U.S. must establish a framework that helps unleash investment in our infrastructure sufficient to ensure all American citizens and businesses have access to affordable, efficient, reliable and cleaner energy; and that we must do so in a way that cuts carbon emissions, in order to address climate change…” the letter read.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said clean energy is “becoming closely intertwined with our economic growth and global competitiveness,” and said hundreds of thousands of new jobs were created because of investments in clean energy technology.
The new policy should also strive for energy independence by implementing both fossil fuels and cleaner energy practices, said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D. “We can use all of these resources while building the technology to make them cleaner and reduce emissions,” she said.
The letters were mailed out the same day the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 against the Environmental Protection Agency in Michigan v. EPA. The Court ultimately decided the EPA misinterpreted the Clean Air Act and failed to calculate regulation costs before imposing new rules on states.
