Quakers Present Cantwell with Peace Award for Advancing Clean Energy Future
Recognition for Cantwell's bipartisan CLEAR Act to get America off fossil fuels and onto clean-energy sources, and reduce global warming pollution
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) (sometimes referred as the Quakers) honored U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) with the organization’s highest legislative award for her work advancing comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation. In presenting the award, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) identified Cantwell’s bipartisan Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal (CLEAR) Act as “a pathway to environmental balance and the peaceful prevention of deadly conflict.” The 2010 Edward F. Snyder Award for National Legislative Leadership in Advancing Disarmament and Building Peace is presented annually by the Friends Committee, the lobbying division of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). The award goes to a member of Congress who has displayed leadership in advancing legislative priorities consistent with those advocated by FCNL.
“Every day headlines from around the world remind us of the links between our overreliance on fossil fuels and conflict,” said Senator Cantwell. “And we are already starting to see how the environmental impacts of unchecked global warming can also impact global security. We need to act now to take control of our energy future, for the sake of today’s citizens and future generations. The bipartisan CLEAR Act is a simple, transparent, and equitable solution that should be the Senate’s starting point for tackling one of the greatest challenges facing our nation, and the entire world.”
Introduced last December with Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), CLEAR is a cap-and-dividend proposal that would reduce global warming pollution, spur job growth in clean energy technology, and protect consumers from energy price increases as America transitioned to a clean-energy economy. CLEAR would set up a mechanism for selling “carbon shares” to fuel producers or importers and would return most of the resulting revenue in checks to every American. The legislation would achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 20 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. To learn more, click here.
The Quakers identified the CLEAR Act as a way not only to address global climate change but also to foster a more peaceful and stable world by reducing dependence on and conflict over fossil fuel resources.
“Your initiative for the CLEAR Act not only promises a pathway to environmental balance but also a pathway to the peaceful prevention of deadly conflict,” Friends Committee Executive Secretary Joe Volk wrote to Cantwell in notifying her of the award. “Unchecked global warming, due to our reliance on fossil fuels, already has begun to change our climate, and that climate change will create conditions of insecurity and violent conflict, including displaced populations, mass migrations, water and food shortages, disease and pestilence.”
With Senator Cantwell in Washington state, Amit Ronen, her Deputy Chief of Staff and Energy Advisor, accepted the award on her behalf at a ceremony this evening in Washington, D.C.
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