Breakthrough Climate Change Agreement Opens Door for Federal Action in 2009

Contact:            

Tony Kreindler, Environmental Defense Fund, (202) 445-8108or tkreindler@edf.org 

 

(Washington- January 15, 2009) Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and a broad coalition of major companies and non-profit groups today unveiled a groundbreaking new blueprint for federal legislation to fight climate change and jumpstart economic recovery with a cap on global warming pollution.

“This is an Obama Era blueprint — business and environmentalists working together for a bold, practical solution, and that solution is a cap,” said EDF President Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund.
 
“The cap protects the atmosphere – it’s the legal guarantee that pollution goes down. The cap also creates customers. And if America has ever needed customers, at home and abroad, now is the time,” Krupp said.
 
The blueprint, two years in the making, represents a consensus agreement among a diverse group of companies from across the U.S. economy and leading non-profit organizations on the design of comprehensive climate legislation. USCAP is calling on Congress and the incoming administration to pass a cap and trade bill as soon as possible.
 
The centerpiece of the USCAP blueprint is a mandatory and declining economy-wide cap on global warming pollution from electric utilities, transportation fuels and industrial facilities. It calls for aggressive greenhouse gas emissions reductions with targets and timelines consistent with President-elect Barack Obama’s proposals.
 
“The cap is the key. It mobilizes private capital to build the clean energy technologies that will solve climate change, and it breathes new life into markets for the U.S. manufacturers who build them. That means more jobs for American workers and a safer climate for everyone,” Krupp said.
 
Key elements of the USCAP blueprint for legislative action include aggressive emission reductions targets and timelines that follow the science — including an 80 percent reduction from 2005 levels by 2050 – mechanisms to manage costs without undermining environmental goals, and provisions to address economic impacts on consumers.
 
Full text of the USCAP blueprint is online at www.us-cap.org.

With more than 3 million members, Environmental Defense Fund creates transformational solutions to the most serious environmental problems. To do so, EDF links science, economics, law, and innovative private-sector partnerships to turn solutions into action. edf.org