When your local utility buys more renewable energy to power your
lights and computers, what more do you get besides the power?
You get cleaner air, fewer respiratory health problems, and
lower health-care costs. You get local jobs building and
maintaining green power plants and a better foothold in the
fast-growing, multi-billion dollar global renewable energy
industry. If you use the power to charge the new plug-in
electric vehicles now available, you reduce our imports of
foreign oil and increase our energy security. And finally, you
reduce the greenhouse gases that are leading to the severe,
threatening weather events spurred by global climate change.[i]
Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have laws that
require utilities to purchase a percentage of their power from
renewable sources, known as renewable portfolio standards. An
additional nine states have voluntary renewable energy goals.
Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, is now urging
state legislators to repeal these laws, say