Markey: Obama Needs To 'Make The Case In Prime Time' For Clean Energy

8/6/09: Appearing at the Harvard Kennedy School with Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) argues that if President Obama "makes the case in prime time" for Markey's American Clean Energy and Security Act, the American people will "support this bill in overwhelming numbers."

MARKEY:
If Americans understood that we produce 8 million barrels of oil a day, but we import 13 million barrels of oil a day, and this bill combined with fuel economy standards can reduce by 5 million barrels of oil a day the amount of oil we import, I mean we can tell OPEC we don't need your oil any more than we need your sand-- that's a big selling point.

If we tell them we can create two to three million new jobs in this sector over the next ten years-- that's a big selling point.

If we tell them we can stabilize countries around the world that are otherwise going to be destabilized by what climate change is going to do to their rivers, to their glaciers, to their deserts-- I think that's a big selling point.

I think once the president makes this case in prime time, after this health care debate passes us by, I think it's going to pass. I think the American people are going to undertand the bill and support the bill in overwhelming numbers. The polling actually says that when the argument is made that way, 70 percent Americans want us to finally put this relationship we have with these old technologies to the rear of us and move ahead. And that's going to be our opportunity this fall, hopefully with the help of everyone here.

All issues go through three phases: political education, political activation, political implementation. We're going to need everyone here to make this possible.

Yes, you can find deficiencies in the bill. But the larger goals in this bill, what it's going to accomplish, are so historic, that it would be the most important energy and environmental bill that has ever passed this United States Congress. And we're going to need everyone here if we are going to accomplish that.

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