Energy Reports

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Executive Summary

Our reliance on dirty energy is fueling global warming, harming our health, threatening our security and stalling our economy. Burning coal, oil and gas for energy and transportation is responsible for 80 percent of U.S. global warming pollution and most of our smog and soot pollution.

We can protect our environment and strengthen our economy by investing in clean energy and green infrastructure. A green economic recovery plan would mean less global warming pollution, fewer asthma attacks from air pollution, more clean lakes and rivers for drinking water, swimming and fishing, more secure energy in the long term, and more jobs than investing in the dirty energy technologies of the past.

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to make clean energy and green infrastructure a cornerstone of America’s economic recovery. In his first radio address of 2009, the president-elect said "to put people back to work today and reduce our dependence on foreign oil tomorrow, we will double renewable energy production and renovate public buildings to make them more energy efficient.”

This report provides specific recommendations in support of the president-elect’s efforts to ensure a green economic recovery and estimates the environmental benefits of those recommendations.