The Burlington Free Press has a story on some energy legislation Sen. Bernie Sanders is about to introduce:
Sanders’ proposed energy grants could be used by Vermont towns and counties to update building codes to require construction of energy-efficient homes and businesses, retrofit old buildings with newer technology, experiment with alternative energy, create incentives for residents to car pool or ride the bus, and organize voluntary efforts to encourage people to save energy by turning down their thermostats or replacing traditional light bulbs with compact fluorescent lighting.
The Senate also will vote on a Sanders amendment that would create a program to train workers to install solar panels, retrofit older homes and offices, and perform energy audits to educate people about how to save money.
The article also contains the bizarre reasoning of the folks at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank, about how Sanders’ legislation will destroy the economy.
On Thom Hartmann‘s Friday (June 1st) podcast, Sanders made the following remarks:
What excites me very much, while there will clearly be economic dislocation as you move away from fossil fuels, at the end of the day I think we can create a helluva lot more jobs than we lose, including good-paying jobs.
So Sanders is trying to challenge the erroneous view that mitigating global warming will be bad for the economy. After mentioning wind, solar, and geothermal energy — not biofuels — he then talks about public transit:
We have gotta catch up to Europe, Japan, China even, in terms of mass transportation, in terms of significantly improving our decaying rail system, and this is just an extraordinary opportunity to turn America around in terms of energy.
