Since President Bush took office, the coal, oil, and automobile
industries have stuck to their inside-the-beltway script,
lavishing Congress and the White House with party favors. But
out in the states, activists are riding a tide of voter anger
over deteriorating air quality and rising energy costs. They are
also tapping Americans' entrepreneurial impulse to innovate
cost-effective solutions to complex problems.

In the past two years, California and New Mexico have joined the
growing ranks of states that offer legislative and financial
incentives to develop renewable energy and energy efficiency
resources, bringing the national total to 18 states. This fall,
voters will be asked to pass a renewable energy standard in
Colorado; nascent efforts to pass clean energy laws are
gathering steam in Washington and Utah. Even conservative
Montana -- whose residents have been hit with a massive bailout
of their gas utility due to Enron-style business practices -- is
beginning to eye its own considerable wind energy resources as a
way to pull the rug from under fossil fuel market manipulators.

Significantly, the human health and environmental benefits of
clean energy are slowly being joined by clean energy's other
strong selling point: it is cost-competitive with many forms of
fossil fuel energy development. Two recent studies by the U.S.
Energy Information Administration (EIA) found that America's
consumers would save as much as $13 billion between now and
2020 if Congress passed a 10 percent renewable energy standard.
[1]

A recent Stanford University study of national wind power
potential found that 24 percent of U.S. wind monitoring sites
experience gusts fast enough to generate power as cheaply as
coal or natural gas plants. [2]

In late May, Western Resource Advocates, a policy think-tank in
Colorado, released its own "Balanced Energy Plan" for the
interior West, detailing the benefits of generating 20 percent
of regional electricity from renewable energy. The findings:
renewable energy, coupled with solid investments in energy
efficiency, would save the seven-state region -- Colorado, Utah,
Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Wyoming, and Montana -- at least
$2 billion annually, and as much as $5 billion.

Full implementation would protect the region's energy customers,
including large businesses, against risks of rising gas prices
or future greenhouse gas reductions; air pollution would drop by
30%, and the main global warming gas, carbon dioxide, would drop
by 40%. [3]

While much of the savings would come from reduced reliance on
natural gas to generate electricity (gas has experienced wild
price volatility due to market manipulation and regional supply
bottlenecks) additional savings would be realized if the
administration took action to combat climate change and fully
enforce the Clean Air Act. [4]

Americans may no longer have to hold their breath while Congress
and the White House fail to act: the vacuum created by the
absence of leadership on energy policy in Washington is steadily
being filled by the states, where voters understand the real
value of clean air, a healthy environment -- and affordable,
reliable electricity.

###

SOURCES:
[1] Energy Information Administration, Analysis of a 10-Percent
Renewable Portfolio Standard, SR/OIAF/2003-01, May 2003.
[2] "One-quarter of United States is suited for wind power
production, researchers find," Stanford Report, May 21, 2003.
[3] "A Balanced Energy Plan for the Interior West," Western
Resource Advocates, May 2004.
[4] "EIA Studies Show a National Renewable Electricity Standard
Can Save Consumers and Businesses Money," Union of Concerned
Scientists, Jun. 2003.