SEEC Leads Charge Urging Funding for Key Environmental and Clean Energy Initiatives

WASHINGTON, DC -- Today the members of the Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition (SEEC) joined with colleagues in the House of Representatives to send a letter to House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt and Ranking Member Paul Ryan urging funding for important environmental, clean energy, and sustainability initiatives as part of the Fiscal Year 2011 federal budget.

The letter, signed by 59 Members of Congress, urges that the Committee and Congress “continue to support our nation’s core conservation, environmental, and clean energy programs,” and states that “these programs will create jobs, transition us to a new clean energy economy, improve local communities, and provide a healthy environment with clean air and clean drinking water for Americans.”

The letter calls on the Budget Committee to include in its resolution robust funding for U.S. environmental and natural resources agencies and programs, as well as programs that support the advancement of renewable energy, energy efficiency, advanced vehicles, and other clean energy technologies. According to the text, “by providing the necessary funding to these programs we can maintain and improve the health and prosperity of our nation and its resources and help to lay the foundation for the United States to lead the world in clean energy technologies.”

These Members of Congress also express their support for initiatives and programs within and between federal agencies that will promote livable communities and that are “aimed at creating more environmentally and economically sustainable communities and promoting the innovation and deployment of clean energy.” Their letter also urges the Budget Committee to support “the President’s proposal of eliminating wasteful spending that has supported high-polluting energy technologies" and urges that these funds are instead re-directed to support environmental and clean energy initiatives.