Announcing he would not seek re-election, U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh cited the hyper-partisanship of today's Congress as his primary reason for stepping down. "There is too much partisanship and not enough progress -- too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving," Bayh said.
This is certainly the case in the debate around clean energy. With clean energy, we have an opportunity to increase our energy security by reducing dependence on foreign oil and to create new, domestic manufacturing industries, while reducing carbon emissions. Yet to date, the debate in Congress has been mired in partisan bickering.
Hacked e-mails and winter storms have obscured a very sobering reality that is not debatable: the world is transitioning to a clean energy infrastructure, regardless of U.S. domestic policy. Whichever country leads the production of technology and builds the physical components of that infrastructure will be the economic leader of the world.
Right now, that country is China.
China supplies 40 percent of the world's solar photovoltaic technology and is the world's leading wind turbine manufacturer. It continues to aggressively pursue these new opportunities, where we have not.
McKinsey found the United States could save $1.2 trillion by 2020 by investing $520 billion in energy efficiency improvements, such as "sealing leaky ducts and replacing inefficient household appliances." And the universities of Berkeley, Illinois and Yale estimate that with energy and climate policies in place, the United States would gain at least 900,000 jobs sealing those ducts and manufacturing those appliances.
Northwest Indiana's manufacturing base would see immediate job creation if clean energy policy is implemented. A new report by The Climate Group and The University of Michigan (using economic research from Deloitte) estimates that energy and climate policies could create over 10,000 jobs in Indiana by 2015 from the manufacture of wind turbine components, hybrid powertrains and advanced batteries alone.
And that's three of the 15 low-carbon technologies in which we have a competitive advantage. The World Steel Association says that while steel is "indispensable to renewable energy industries [like] wind turbines and solar power structures ... it is also a key part of the construction of carbon neutral housing for the future and in a new generation of lightweight yet fuel-efficient vehicles."
Clean energy policy would also give us an opportunity to break our dependence on foreign oil and avoid future security threats that could result from a changing climate. Last month, the Pentagon released its Quadrennial Defense Review, finding that "climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to ... the further weakening of fragile governments ... food and water scarcity ... and the spread of disease." But these realities are not at the center of the current debate.
As Bayh's departure reminds us, we need to put an end to the partisan politics that prevent real progress before we fall behind.
Allison Hannon, a graduate of Andrean High School, is Midwest Regional Manager of the Climate Group Inc. The opinion expressed in this column is the writer's and not necessarily that of The Times.
