WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Edward J. Markey (D-MA), a senior Democratic Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and author of the “Fuel Security and Consumer Choice Act” which would promote the use of alternative fuels to help reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, reacted today to the news that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado is laying off 32 employees because of budget cuts.

“It is utterly astonishing that barely more than a week after the President declared in his State of the Union Address that we needed to break our ‘addiction’ to foreign oil, he is handing out pink slips to one of the most vital contributors to our renewable energy effort,” said Rep. Markey. “We cannot move forward to a clean and secure energy future without making advances in energy efficiency and renewable energy, yet the administration and the Republican leadership in Congress have decided that it is more important to fund bridges to nowhere for $231 million rather than provide less than one tenth of that amount to keep the laboratory running at full strength.”

“We have an opportunity to fundamentally change the relationship of the United States to energy in a way that helps the consumer, reduces the adverse health effects of pollution, reduces greenhouse gases that lead to global warming, and reduces the need to use military force to protect oil fields in countries thousands of miles from our shores,” Rep. Markey said. “Today’s cuts are just the latest example of the president not putting his money where his mouth is when it comes to moving away from oil and towards a cleaner energy future. The president is just continuing his energy policy of ‘leave all innovation behind.’”

For more information on Rep. Markey’s work on energy policy check out http://markey.house.gov/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 8, 2006


 

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