[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Page 6405]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        COMMEMORATING EARTH DAY

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, 38 years ago, Senator Gaylord Nelson of 
Wisconsin founded Earth Day to celebrate the environment and to call 
attention to the major environmental issues of the time. Once again we 
celebrate the progress we have made to protect our environment, and are 
again called upon to address new challenges facing our planet.
  Since Earth Day's conception in 1970 our Nation has worked to reduce 
pollution and clean up lakes, streams, and the air we breathe. These 
environmental accomplishments have made us healthier, our economy 
prosper, and have helped to make America even more beautiful.
  Although we have made great strides to improve and protect our 
environment, it is clear that we are facing one of the gravest 
environmental challenges of our time. Global warming from man-made 
greenhouse gas emissions may be the most complicated crisis our world 
has ever faced. We must address it quickly and boldly in the United 
States and assert global leadership on this most important issue.
  Rising temperatures threaten to devastate western landscapes, 
intensify drought, and magnify summer heat waves. Fortunately, if we 
act swiftly, we still have a narrow window of time and opportunity to 
reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the impacts of climate 
change.
  Over the next 15 years, I am confident that we can reduce emissions 
by at least 25 percent. We will establish a framework for capping 
greenhouse gas emissions without imposing economic hardship on 
Americans. We will also create a business environment that provides 
ample incentives to phase out rapidly our current outdated 19th century 
energy production and decisionmaking methods.
  Global warming is an enormous opportunity wrapped in a complex 
challenge. On this Earth Day, I want Nevadans and all Americans to 
embrace and prepare for the challenge, and recognize the tremendous 
opportunity we have to improve our energy security, create hundreds of 
thousands of new jobs and develop the new, clean, efficiency and 
renewable energy economy of the future. With the right investments and 
political will, we can soon power all our cars, homes and industry with 
power from the Sun, the wind, and the Earth.
  In a 100-mile-square area of Nevada and the Southwest's desert, we 
have enough solar energy resources to supply the entire United States 
with electricity. This might seem unreal today because our thinking is 
shaped most by those who profit from selling us fossil fuels. But, 
solar technologies at the utility-scale and in distributed applications 
are quickly becoming economical and have far far fewer of the hidden 
costs of coal, nuclear and other unsustainable resources.
  In addition, we have vast wind and geothermal resources that America 
has only begun to tap. By expanding and improving transmission access 
to rural and undeveloped areas where solar, wind and geothermal are 
often most plentiful, our renewable energy resources can work in 
affordable harmony, improving our energy security and reliability, 
using cost-free fuel for ever.
  In a speech I gave earlier this year, I established five policy goals 
to promote renewable energy. These principles will help launch Nevada 
and the nation in a new direction that chooses ingenuity over 
stagnation, progress over pollution. They include: consumer choice--
allowing consumers to choose renewable energy to power their homes at 
reasonable cost; consumer empowerment--allowing homeowners to receive 
credit for generating their own renewable electricity; making space for 
renewables--setting aside federal land for renewable energy production; 
investment--providing incentives to utility companies to choose 
renewables and efficiency over fossil fuels; and electric cars--
building a smart grid that can charge electric automobiles.
  Achieving these policy goals could help make our nation more 
sustainable, both environmentally and economically. They are some of 
the necessary steps we must take toward a low-carbon economy.
  Climate scientists tell us that the countries of the world have 
approximately 10-15 years to radically transform the way that energy is 
made and consumed because greenhouse gas concentrations in the 
atmosphere are verging on dangerous interference with the global 
climate system. This means making tremendous reductions quickly and 
ensuring that our energy decisions today do not warp the future for our 
children and generations to come.
  As we celebrate Earth Day this year, I ask that you join me in 
thinking about the road ahead and how we will overcome this great 
environmental challenge that we face as Nevadans, Americans, and 
citizens of the world.

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