Nancy Floyd
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 06:42 PM
Good evening! Ever since I graduated college, I’ve worked in one way or another on
renewable energy, trying to find cleaner, cheaper ways to power everything from our cars
to our homes to our entire economy. I’ve worn a tool belt, put on rattlesnake guards,
gotten my hands dirty, while I literally helped build some of the very first wind farms in
the country. And now my partners and I at Nth power work with energy entrepreneurs,
helping to bring their ideas to market.
I graduated college 32 years ago when the entire nation was focused on “the energy
crisis.” Three decades have passed, and where are we now? The costs of filling up our
tanks or cooling our homes are going through the roof. Our climate is warming. And our
reliance on foreign oil has never been greater. Here we are again back in yet another
energy crisis.
I can tell you that there are thousands of entrepreneurs, from Portland, Oregon to
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with new solutions. Investors are lining up to back them.
What’s missing is leadership from Washington. We can’t afford another 30 years of
partisanship and inaction. We need new thinking and new leadership. We need Barack
Obama as president of the United States.
What’s at stake is not just our national security. Not just the future of our planet. What’s
at stake is whether or not the United States will lead the creation of an industry of historic
proportions that will create millions of new, high-paying jobs.
Let me put it this way. Green technology is where the computer industry was in 1984, the
year the Macintosh computer was introduced. Think about how far we’ve come since
then. That’s how far-reaching and how transformational green technology will be.
Thousands of new companies. Millions of new jobs. In fact, investments in wind and
solar technologies have already created 2.4 million jobs.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that less than 10 percent of them are here in the
United States. That’s because other countries have smart, stable, forward-looking energy
policies. So American companies that are working on wind, solar and the next generation
of biofuels are selling, and now manufacturing, their products in places like Germany,
Spain and China. That’s lost jobs here at home. And the loss of one of the biggest
economic opportunities to ever come our way.
It’s time for a change. Barack Obama has a comprehensive energy plan that will get us
off of foreign oil, stop global warming, and create millions of new jobs in the United
States. I’ve read it, and you should read it too at www.barack.obama.com. And what you
will see is that Barack Obama is not proposing the same old, tired answers. He’s offering
the change we so urgently need.
He will cut taxes for families who buy fuel-efficient cars and trucks, and make sure that
those cars are being built by American autoworkers. He will make an unprecedented
investment in green technologies, and that will create 5 million new jobs over the next
decade.
I know, to some, it may sound a little pie-in-the-sky. But I’m sure a lot of people said that
about the home computer and the internet. The truth is: America can do it. With the right
leadership, we can seize this moment. And with Barack Obama as president, we can set
our economy on a course for growth and widespread prosperity.
Thank you.