Energy

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Transitioning to clean, alternative energy is both a national security and an economic imperative. The transition to alternative energy presents enormous opportunities, and as a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Senator Shaheen is committed to ensuring that America leads the way in building tomorrow's green economy, creating millions of jobs and opportunity up and down the economic ladder.

We face unprecedented energy and environmental challenges. We cannot continue to send oil dollars to hostile regions of the world, we must confront the global threat of climate change, and at the same time we must meet our rapidly growing energy needs.

In the Senate, Shaheen supported substantial investments in transitioning our country to a clean energy economy, including more than $45 billion in direct spending for energy efficiency and renewable energy.  She also voted to provide more than $21 billion in energy tax incentives.

Conservation

By some estimates, our nation's electricity consumption is expected to increase by at least 40 percent by 2030. Innovation and investment in alternative energy will play a key role in addressing this challenge, but we can take an enormous step toward addressing our growing energy needs in a climate-friendly manner by enacting policies that foster greater conservation.  

Senator Shaheen believes we must place renewed emphasis on energy conservation, demand-side management, and efficiency technologies (such as more efficient lighting, appliances and insulation, combined heat and power, and better building codes) that will reduce the amount of energy we consume.  We need a 21st century transmission grid that utilizes SmartGrid technologies, which will enable consumers to use power more efficiently and help reduce peak energy usage.  Many of these technologies are already available and just need the right policies and incentives in place to be deployed on a larger scale.

Renewable Energy

Senator Shaheen believes that national energy policies must place greater emphasis on clean, renewable energy technologies.  Technologies, such as wind, solar and biomass have enormous potential benefits for New Hampshire's economy, and they can help us break our addiction to fossil fuels and put us on a path toward a clean, sustainable energy future.

Biomass, hydro and wind resources are already helping New Hampshire meet its strong renewable energy requirements, and the opportunity to expand these efforts is promising.  New Hampshire's North Country has vast and underutilized renewable timber resources ripe for investment in biomass energy. And the National Renewable Energy Lab has identified more than 1,000 gigawatts of wind potential off the Atlantic coast, and the offshore winds from the Mid-Atlantic to New England represent some of the best wind potential in the United States.

Senator Shaheen believes that we need to support the development of renewable energy with the passage of a strong renewable electricity standard, extending tax credits for renewable energy, investing in renewable energy technology research and development, and putting a price on greenhouse gases through a federal climate program in addition to other complimentary and supportive federal policies.

Transportation

Our reliance on foreign sources of energy is unsustainable and severely compromises our national security interests. We import 60% of the petroleum that we consume and many of the sources of this foreign energy come from countries often are at odds with our own national security interests. And almost 30% of all the energy that we consume in the United States is used for powering the transportation sector, such as cars and trucks.

Senator Shaheen believes we can transform our economy and make our nation more secure by repowering our transportation sector, improving vehicle efficiency, investing in mass transit, freight and passenger rail, and incentivizing smart growth policies for states and local governments. Shaheen voted to provide millions in funding for mass transit in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Climate Change

The science on climate change is in - according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of 3,000 scientists from over 130 countries who have studied climate change for over twenty years, global emissions must be stabilized by midcentury in order to avoid the most catastrophic and irreversible changes of climate change.  Senator Shaheen is committed to enacting policies that will reduce our CO2 emissions by 80 percent by 2050. 

New Hampshire is already a leader in confronting climate change. Along with 10 other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states, New Hampshire helped to form the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the first mandatory, market-based effort in the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  It is now time for Congress and the President to follow New Hampshire's lead and come together and enact a federal, mandatory greenhouse gas program to cut our emissions by 80 percent by 2050.