 with a spoon ding ding ding. Everyone I'd like to call everyone's attention back up here to the lectern for a moment. We, I have to say Oregon has been the best represented state at the 26-annual Renewable Energy Congressional Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus event. Senator Jeff Merkley is joining us, the short list for top clean energy champions in Congress I think, and it really means a lot for to have you join us here at the end of a big day for us, a big day for you, a busy day I'm sure all around. Love to hear what you have to say about how things are going in Congress and maybe what the outlook is going forward. Thank you. Well greetings everybody and let's just start from the point of view that we have a lot of work to do. We can talk all we want about the importance of the fast transition to renewable energy but we have to go faster. The the measure of this is how much carbon dioxide and methane gas we're putting into the environment and humankind put more in last year than in any year in human history. I've watched the annual amount of carbon go from an average of about 0.1 or one part per million per year to now over three parts per million per year. And the acceleration that forces behind that more if you will prosperity in countries where where folks are like yeah I want to buy a scooter now instead of a bicycle or a car instead of a scooter or buy more products and it takes more energy to buy more products. So driven in a way by the positive goal of people moving out of poverty around the world which makes the task even that much harder. Now as we think about that transition from fossil energy to renewable energy sometimes it can seem very very complicated there's you know thick pieces of legislation, lots of acronyms, lots of ideas but it really just boils down to a simple concept. Electrify everything with renewable energy. That's it can we do that? That's all it takes. We just have to accelerate that path and we have to have America be on that path with such conviction that we can speak with weight and partnership with the rest of the world. If America is continuing to do all of the above more drilling more fossil more gas more fossil fuels of all types gas oil then when we talk to countries around the world their answer is we're very happy to set a 2035 goal. We're really happy to set a 2050 goal but those goals are just mirages on the horizon. Any government in power can set such a goal and say we're with you America but if you have the conversation for example as in Indonesia couple months ago and Indonesia has big coal reserves they are really the two most powerful forces in Indonesia the coal industry and the palm oil industry and they're happy to brag about their 2035 goal and their 2050 goal so was Vietnam that I went to just before that but what matters is where the rubber is hitting the road in the near term. Just a couple thoughts in that regard. Here in America our words will carry no weight internationally if we are continuing to approve new fossil projects and just within the time this administration has been in office they approved massive extensive more drilling in the Gulf. They approved a 25 billion dollar loan guarantee for a pipeline in Alaska. They approved a new fossil gas pipeline at a new LNG export facility in Alaska. They approved a new Willow project on the North Shore and they approved the Mountain Valley Pipeline so we carry no weight internationally when we are doing that. Most countries are much poorer than the US. They're not going to say yeah we'll transition if they think well one of the most affluent nations a nation that has put more carbon into the air than any other over the 150 years is still on the carbon track so we have to consider certain mistakes that we are currently heading straight for. One is we're building more fossil infrastructure. That's a mistake that's not going to accelerate the transition to renewable energy. Second there's a lot of impetus for fossil hydrogen. That's a mistake. It's made from fossil gas the pipeline's leak. Methane's far more effective as a climate capture if you will a heat capturing gas ounce for ounce than carbon dioxide. Plastics the fossil gas world wants to produce a lot more plastics. We normally talk about it as a challenge in terms of both lumps of plastic that end up in our rivers and oceans and affect our sea life but also micro plastics that have a very big impact on human health. If we are using fossil gas to make it then not only is the plastic polluting but the process of making it is contributing significantly to climate change. So those are mistakes we have to avoid. I am very excited about the Inflation Reduction Act because that is the most significant bill we've we've done and far more significant than most of us thought was possible and I'm really struck by the amount of investments the sum $150 billion of announced investments since it was passed. That includes plans for 26 solar manufacturing factories, 10 utility scale battery storage factories, eight regular land based wind power factories, two offshore wind manufacturing factories and then of course all of the plans for the solar fields themselves and the wind fields themselves. So that is dramatic it's an estimated 16,000 or more jobs and that's just going to keep accelerating. We're going to have a lot more on that ledger a year from today and we need to make those products in America and those factories reflect that. If we associate clean energy with Made in America it's far more powerful than if clean energy is associated with buying products overseas and just installing them. Made in America good American manufacturing jobs are things that really go hand in hand with creating momentum so that's a tremendous start. So there are certainly substantial political forces for continuing the fossil path but the world needs America. We have to have an effective voice. I don't think the world can make this transition. Now what I described is over a couple decades we've gone from one part per million per year to two to now three. You know we all think most Americans think I do town halls in every county every year 36 counties most of them very very red counties and I can tell you the issue of climate reverberates if you talk about it in terms of the farmers, the forests, the fishing and the ranchers because they all know they see huge huge impacts. Our snowpack in the Cascades has dropped some 240 inches on average over the last nine decades. That means a lot less water flowing out of the snowpack and none flowing in the middle of summer. It means our trout and salmon streams and I'll ask people in the rural area say how many people in the room fish and half worries are ham because they fish and half worries are ham because they don't want to tell people they don't fish. It is certainly so observed that the groundwater is dropping and that the drought is destroying folk farms that have been there for a century. So we talk in terms of those fundamental values we connect across the political divide across the urban rural divide. I wish it was not the case that we were at this state of emergency but it is an emergency and we have to far accelerate simply beyond the IRA. So lots of work to be done. It's a great start with that bill. Let's not head down any of the alleys that lead us to undo the good work that the IRA is going to do. Thank you all very much for inviting me to come by.