Denver, CO – Today, Michael Bennet, U.S. Senator for Colorado, stood with a local, clean-tech company to call on the Senate to keep moving forward on energy legislation that will allow America to compete in the new energy economy and that will rid our dependence on foreign oil.
“America’s greatest national resource is our innovative spirit. We’ve led every technological revolution of the last century, and there’s no reason we can’t lead the clean energy revolution as well,” Bennet said.
Additional jobs-driven energy legislation has the potential to create millions of clean energy jobs and make America more competitive. Colorado’s job growth in the clean tech sector is more than double the normal growth of the economy.
From 1998-2007, the number of clean energy jobs in Colorado grew 18.2 percent while overall job growth grew at 8.2 percent. From 2006-2008 private companies invested $622.4 million dollars in clean energy through venture capital funds.
Bennet stood with Colorado-based RavenBrick™ to talk about Colorado’s potential to lead the nation in the new energy economy due to the unique resources in the state, such as solar, wind, and natural gas.
“Colorado has shown the courage to move forward with a clean energy economy that creates jobs and also protects our planet,” Bennet said. “But instead of moving forward, Washington’s political games allowed us to fall further behind China and India in the race to create a truly clean energy economy. “
The United States is currently falling behind other countries in the world because of a lack of progress on any form of energy legislation. The Chinese government is investing $9 billion dollars a month in clean energy. And the Germans are already building more solar panels than cars.
“There are still provisions that are worthy of debate in this bill. I am supportive of lifting the liability cap for oil companies like BP to hold them fully accountable for their oil spills and I support full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund that protects our natural heritage,” Bennet said. “But we need to do more. We need to move forward with a legislation that uses our greatest resource – American ingenuity – to create jobs, to break our dependence on foreign oil, and to protect our planet for generations to come.
Bennet said that he is eager to examine existing and new legislation that can serve as a vehicle to ensure additional jobs-driven energy legislation remains on the table for the debate moving forward.