Energy Ideas Democrats and Republicans Agree On

„In my last year of office alone, the state of California approved applications for nearly 6,000 megawatts of solar power, the equivalent of six new coal plants. Construction began on the world's largest wind energy plant. Those projects produce thousands of jobs, hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment and renewable energy we don't have to import from hostile oil regimes or burn coal for. Democrats and Republicans can embrace results like that.

Public health is another part of the energy picture where there is common ground. You don't hear much about it in Washington, but we highlighted the issue last fall when we put together a bipartisan coalition to defeat the big oil companies trying to weaken our environmental laws. Uniting environmentalists, venture capitalists, health groups, big and small businesses, unions, farmers, Democrats and Republicans, our campaign won by 22 points. We have about 100,000 premature deaths in the U.S. each year from petroleum-related air pollution and 6.5 million annual hospital visits by people with respiratory illnesses caused by the same thing.

These deaths are far greater in number than the combined deaths from car accidents, drunk drivers, gang wars, suicides or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to talk about this when we are debating where to put clean energy plants and the transmission lines needed to move that energy to our cities, homes and businesses. I know we must be vigilant when it comes to protecting our environment. But I also look forward to the day when our solar and wind plants in the Mojave and elsewhere are up and running, providing clean, renewable energy to a safer, stronger and more prosperous America.”