SEEC leaders applaud President Obama's support for clean energy innovation and job creation agenda
WASHINGTON, DC - Today Congressmen Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Steve Israel (D-NY) - the Co-Chairs of the Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition (SEEC) - applauded the comments of President Barack Obama as he toured a General Electric Co. facility in Schenectady, New York and spoke on the importance of clean energy to America’s economic future:
“We applaud President Obama’s comments today and support his call for a focus on growing innovative American businesses and giving clean energy entrepreneurs and manufacturers the tools they need to lead the twenty-first century global energy economy.
“Clean energy is a job creator, and federal government has an essential role to play that will incentivize the production and adoption of new energy technologies. That is why the Congress should enact policies that will drive manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines, and advanced batteries for electric vehicles, and that will create more energy efficient buildings.
“The 2009 Recovery Act was a great step in the right direction, and is on track to create more than 700,000 clean energy jobs and double America’s renewable energy manufacturing and generating capacities by 2012. But much work remains if the U.S. is to compete in the clean energy race. Our Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition looks forward to working with Congressional leaders and the Administration to enact further policies that will create clean energy jobs and ensure continued American economic competitiveness.”
SEEC Vice Chair Paul Tonko was with President Obama today in Schenectady, NY, the home of GE Energy’s Renewables Global Headquarters, where the President toured the site of the company’s future advanced battery manufacturing facility. President Obama today named GE CEO Jeff Immelt as the chairman of the President’s “Council on Jobs and Competitiveness."
During the 111th Congress, SEEC helped to pass historic clean energy incentives and investments as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, including vital investments in advanced battery manufacturing to support electric and hybrid-electric vehicles. Prior to this legislation the U.S. had the capacity to manufacture just two percent of the world’s advanced batteries, but as a result of SEEC’s advocacy in this legislation and the private funding it has leveraged, the U.S. is now on pace to have 40 percent of global advanced battery manufacturing capacity by 2015.
At the start of the 112th Congress SEEC’s forty-seven members of the House of Representatives remain committed to policies that will promote innovation and job creation in American clean energy industries.
______________________________________________________
The Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition (SEEC) is a caucus of forty-seven Democratic members of the House of Representatives that was founded in January 2009 to be a focused, active, and effective caucus for advancing “policies that promote clean energy technology innovation and domestic manufacturing, develop renewable energy resources, and create green collar jobs throughout the product supply-chain, and polices to help arrest global warming and protect our nation’s clean air, water and natural environment.” SEEC is co-chaired by Reps. Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Steve Israel (D-NY). SEEC vice chairs are Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), Rush Holt (D-NJ), Chellie Pingree (D-ME), Jared Polis (D-CO), and Paul Tonko (D-NY).