We need a Federal Commitment to the Apollo Energy Program.

[irishbobcat]

We need a Federal Commitment to the Apollo Energy Program.


October 29, 2008


As Green Party Candidate for Congress in the 6th district, I firmly support a Federal Commitment to the Apollo Energy Program.

Last week Randy Swisher, the executive director of the American Wind Energy Association, notified us that his organization's board of directors agreed to support The New Apollo Program. With its endorsement, AWEA became the 48th organization to sign on to the Apollo Alliance's national clean energy, good jobs economic development strategy. "We view the program as incredibly compatible with our agenda and look forward to working with you to make it a reality," wrote Swisher.
Swisher's message came just days after the Apollo Alliance finished its six state town hall tour to roll out The New Apollo Program. Our recommendations for how to scale up clean energy tools and techniques to get America's economy back on track were greeted enthusiastically everywhere we went.
In Detroit, Senator Debbie Stabenow captured the sentiments of nearly all the speakers who participated in the roll out events. "The New Apollo Program is the kind of bold program we need. We have to be bolder than we've been," she said during a program that included our President Jerome Ringo, and representatives of the governor's office, the state Legislature, union leaders, and business and environmental leaders. "The next Congress will take up proposals to curb global warming, to seek a system of cap and trade, to invest in biofuels and alternative energy."
"The $50 billion a year that The New Apollo Program proposes to invest just doesn't seem like that much money," Stabenow continued. "It's not a lot of money to spend on our future, especially when you consider the $700 billion that we just spent to bail out our banking system."
In Columbus, Ohio Governor Ted called The New Apollo Program a "win, win, win, win, win strategy." Representative Jay Inslee declared in Seattle, "To those who say over the next few months we should be passive, they're wrong. The antidote is action. The antidote is The New Apollo Program. That's how we solve economic doldrums in this country."
Senator Barbara Boxer joined Apollo Alliance Chairman Phil Angelides at the first event in San Leandro, California, where he memorably declared: "We are closing a chapter on policies that didn't work and opening a new chapter of those that do."
You can follow the roll out tour on our New Apollo Program Web page, which links to the Apollo Blog posts from each city.  The Apollo Alliance home page displays video reports from Columbus and San Leandro - and soon from Detroit - on our Apollo Video player.
This week I've been in New York and Washington talking to mainstream and new media journalists, editors, and producers about The New Apollo Program and the advent of the clean energy economy. "Well what about the price of oil?" one reporter asked. "It's falling. Won't that hurt clean energy producers?"
Our response? My Apollo Alliance colleagues and I study the data, look at the trends, and are convinced this moment is different than the other periods in our history, distant (1970s) and more recent (1990s). The four crises that prompted the formation of the Apollo Alliance – energy, climate, jobs, and security – are getting worse, not better. The solution is a dramatic change in how the United States and the world develop and use clean energy. While America's credit and stock market crisis has drained value out of industrial stocks, including shares of clean energy companies, it's temporary.
Policy responses reflect that. New Jersey this week completed a clean energy master plan designed to accelerate the development of a new way to power the Garden State. Hawaii this week approved a new energy policy designed to produce 70 percent of the state's power from clean sources by 2030, the most ambitious program of its type in the country. California's energy-efficiency policies created nearly 1.5 million jobs from 1977 to 2007. 
The missing piece is a federal commitment to investment in clean energy equivalent in scale and urgency to the original Apollo program to land a man on the moon.

ELECT!!!!
DENNIS SPISAK FOR CONGRESS
Green Party Candidate for Ohio's 6th District
The ONLY PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATE
Running against a Conservative Democrat and Republican!

Renewable Energy Green/Blue Collars Jobs
Single-Payer Affordable Healthcare
Solar Power/Wind Power/Geothermal Energy

Send Campaign Contributions to:

Spisak for Congress
548 Poland Ave
Struthers, Ohio 44471

Campaign donations are not tax-deductible.

Campaign site: Http://votespisak.org/electspisak.tripod.com