Welcome to the Climate Fight, USA!

Climate policy question #1 is simple: Will we put responsible limits on the largest sources of climate pollution?  Today, the Environmental Protection Agency stepped up to answer that question by proposing new rules limiting carbon pollution from power plants.

This is the centerpiece of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan. It signals, at long last, the beginning of the end of the era of free and unlimited carbon dumping in the United States.

Make your voice heard today.

The proposed new rules are flexible; instead of pouring money into continued reliance on obsolete coal plants, we can accelerate investment in energy efficiency and clean energy. We can take our energy dollars (and our power) back from coal and spend them on better buildings, cleaner energy, healthier economies with good local jobs….on a future that works.

And where did the EPA get THAT idea?  From you!

The successful work we’ve been doing together to build a clean energy future in the Northwest and phase out fossil fuels demonstrates the feasibility of these new rules.

We are the proof point that allows the EPA to determine that achieving these new pollution limits is practical and affordable!

I don’t have to tell you – these rules are by no means enough. Our national leaders have been too slow and too timid in responding the climate crisis, and far too willing to defer to the power of fossil fuel interests.  To deliver real climate solutions – at the scale of the problem – we’ll have to keep picking up the pace from here forward.

But a big step is a big step, especially when it signals the first time the federal government has really stood up to the fossil fuel industries and said “enough is enough.”

So don’t let up in the fight for climate solutions! But don’t fail to appreciate that today’s a very good day in that fight, a day when the United States of America showed up.

Tell the EPA and President Obama to press forward!

 

Author Bio

KC Golden

former Senior Policy Advisor, Climate Solutions

KC shapes policy and communication strategies, with the goal of changing what's "possible" so we can do what's necessary. "Cynicism," he insists, "is capitulation."

He has served as a special assistant to the Mayor of Seattle for clean energy and climate protection initiatives and as an Assistant Director in Washington's Department of Community, Trade, and Economic Development, where he directed the state's Energy Policy Office. From 1989 to 1994, he was Executive Director of the Northwest Energy Coalition, a regional alliance working for a clean, affordable energy future.

KC is a leader in the national climate movement, serving on the boards of 350.org (where he is Interim Board Chair) and the US Climate Action Network. He has also been active in the utility industry, helping Seattle City Light become the first major carbon-free electric utility in the late 1990s, and as a Governor's representative to the Executive Board of Energy Northwest, a regional public power consortium. 

KC was one of Seattle Magazine's "Power 25" most influential people, and its #1 "Eco-Hero." In 2012, he received the Heinz Award for Public Policy for his lifetime achievement as a climate advocate and policy architect.

KC earned his Bachelor's Degree at the University of California, Berkeley, and was a Kennedy Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where he received a Master's in Public Policy. He retired from Climate Solutions' staff at the end of 2018.

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