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The United States’ huge appetite for energy, our reliance on unstable and unfriendly countries for most of our oil, our addiction to dirty fossil fuels, and an irresponsible national energy policy are a deadly combination for the global environment and the Rocky Mountain West. Our continued reliance on coal, oil and gas fuels global warming. The Bush Administration’s rush to spur domestic natural gas production is harming western agriculture, water, communities, wildlife and public lands.
Fortunately, there is a good solution to our nation’s energy crisis—developing the West’s vast supply of clean and renewable energy. Renewable energy and energy efficiency are the fastest and most reliable way to increase energy supplies. They also create more jobs than fossil fuel development, lower natural gas and electricity prices, and benefit the environment. Renewable resources are a common sense step away from our dependence on an unstable, unclean fossil fuel supply, and toward a new energy future.
WORC supports:
Biofuels: Clean Renewable Fuel from Farms –The expanded use of biofuels is a cheaper, more realistic and more immediate solution to our energy problems.
Renewable
Electricity Standard –
State and federal policies should set renewable electricity standards
to require utilities to buy or generate a specific percentage of
their energy from clean, renewable sources by a specific date.
Farm Bill Renewable
Energy Program – The 2002
Farm Bill’s Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency
Improvements Program should be fully funded to make grants and loan
guarantees to farmers, ranchers and rural small businesses for renewable
energy project.
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