Environment
The US House should pass a resolution similar to the Bingaman-Specter resolution passed by the Senate acknowledging that global warming is real and calling for mandatory reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. To implement those reductions it should ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
It should encourage energy conservation, telling people to use less electricity, drive less, fly less. It should repeal the wasteful, unnecessary subsidies awarded oil companies in the 2005 energy bill. It should obligate the federal government to buy 20% of its electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar, or geothermal and require power companies to generate at least 20% of the power they sell from these sources.
Congress should stop building interstate highways. It should raise corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards for all motor vehicles. Like PA, it should offer a rebate or tax credit for purchase of a hybrid until this technology becomes standard in all cars. It should assure adequate, stable funding for mass transit systems and Amtrak.
It should tax airline travel according to its carbon dioxide emissions.
It should subsidize weatherization of homes and building of new green structures.
It should require the manufacturer of every product to disclose the total energy required to make and transport it so wise consumers can choose the most efficient. This includes food.
Congress should encourage planting of native trees wherever possible and fight deforestation worldwide, for example, by refusing to allow wood from endangered forests to be imported.
