We are business leaders from companies of
all sizes, many sectors, and from across the
country, calling for your leadership to ensure
America's prosperous, competitive future.
We need you to swiftly enact comprehensive
legislation that will cut carbon pollution
and create an economy-wide cap and trade
program.
We support this legislation for many reasons:
because by putting a price on carbon, it will
drive investment into cost-saving, energy
saving technologies; because it will create the
next wave of jobs in the new energy economy;
because it will provide the predictability we
need to plan for future business success; and
because our companies and our economy will
be more productive.
From its founding, America has been a country
of innovators and entrepreneurs. For every
new technological revolution, we have either
led the way, or our competitive spirit has driven
our citizens to move past the competition
through hard work and ingenuity.
But when it comes to preparing our country
to compete in the clean energy economy, the
U.S. is losing and we lag far behind our global
competitors. Even as our inventors create new technologies, we often lose them to overseas
markets that have supportive government
policies and incentives.
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China's clean economy
strategy includes a stimulus investment of
$221 billion over the next two years - double
that of the U.S. Until the late 1990's, the U.S.
dominated the global solar energy market;
now Japan, China and Germany are the leaders.
Just as we seek to mend our economy to be
"shovel ready" and job creating, we are in fact
supplying a "shelf ready" economy with our
technologies being plucked off our inventors'
shelves for production in other countries. Of
the world's top 10 solar PV, 10 wind and 10
advanced battery manufacturing companies,
only five of the 30 are U.S. companies.
Arguments against action on energy and
climate suggest we can't afford to take action;
yet the reality is we can't afford not to act if
we hope to compete and lead.
As business leaders, certainty and rules of
the road enable us to plan, build, expand and
lead. Climate and energy legislation that caps
carbon and supports clean energy will keep
the inventions here, the companies here,
and the newly-created jobs in engineering,
manufacturing, and installation here in the
U.S. The time has come to build this future.
It is time for the Administration and Congress
to lead the way.
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