WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 21, 2009) Following the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the BlueGreen Alliance released the following statement from Executive Director David Foster:

“The BlueGreen Alliance and its labor and environmental partners commend the historic work of Chairmen Waxman and Markey and members of the Energy and Commerce Committee. While there are still many hurdles to jump and issues to address in this bill, the passage of ACES in Committee this week is a significant step toward ensuring that a strong bill that creates jobs and protects the environment is delivered to the President’s desk this year.

“The BlueGreen Alliance believes that this legislation is a positive step toward ensuring that the U.S. addresses its climate and energy challenges while shifting to a clean energy economy that provides good jobs in green manufacturing and skilled construction trades. By tackling these challenges together, we can make job creation and environmental integrity the two keys to our country’s future prosperity.

“We are pleased that this legislation establishes a cap on the carbon pollution that causes global warming in accordance with principles laid out by the BlueGreen Alliance. In addition, we support a strong Renewable Electricity Standard, which we believe is essential to creating a regulatory framework that supports renewable energy, energy efficiency and new transmission. We look forward to working with Congress to strengthen the renewable energy and efficiency standards in this legislation.

“Finally, we commend the Committee for including safeguards to prevent the leakage of carbon and job loss to other countries. These provisions are essential to ensuring that American manufacturing and its workers remain competitive with the rest of the world.

“The BlueGreen Alliance is committed to achieving comprehensive clean energy and climate change legislation because we believe that it is the most effective way to rapidly put Americans to work building a clean energy economy and to reduce global warming emissions. Today’s passage of ACES marks a significant step forward in that effort, and we look forward to working with Congress to strengthen this bill in order to make certain that it sets America on the path to creating good jobs, reducing global warming and increasing our energy independence.”

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