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Executive Summary
America is at an energy crossroad. As
a nation, we are dependent on fossil
fuels at a time of growing demand
and dwindling supply. Meanwhile, fossil
fuel use continues to impose massive
environmental and economic costs. Now
our country must choose between paying
to continue the status quo and investing in
a new energy future.
The costs of continuing on our current
energy path are steep. American consumers
and businesses already spend roughly $700
billion to $1 trillion each year on coal, oil
and natural gas, and suffer the incalculable
costs of pollution from fossil fuels through
damage to our health and environment.
If America continues along a business-asusual
energy path, U.S. fossil fuel spending
is likely to grow, totaling an estimated $23
trillion between 2010 and 2030.
Policymakers in Washington, D.C., and
many states have recently taken the first
small steps toward a clean energy future,
adopting policies to encourage energy efficiency,
ramp up the use of solar and wind
power, and curb global warming pollution.
Now, with even bolder steps—such as a
national cap on global warming pollution
and more ambitious targets for renewable
energy and energy efficiency—on the public
agenda, powerful interests with a stake
in preserving the status quo have criticized
strong clean energy policies as being too
expensive for the American public.
In fact, the reverse is true. The United
States cannot afford to wait to break our
dependence on fossil fuels. The cost of
fossil fuels to our economy and our environment
will continue to mount in the
years to come unless the nation takes bold
steps now to embrace the benefits of a clean
energy future.
America is overly reliant on fossil
fuels such as coal, natural gas and oil.
This dependence is costly to everyday
citizens, and sends valuable dollars
overseas and out of the domestic
economy.
• The United States depends on
fossil fuels for 85 percent of our
energy supply.
• In 2006, American consumers and
businesses spent $921 billion—or
close to 7 percent of America’s gross
domestic product—on fossil fuels,more than the nation spends on
education or the military. In 2008,
national expenditures on fossil fuels
likely topped $1 trillion for the first
time ever. Each year, more than 70
percent of this money is spent on oil.
• In 2007, America spent more than
$360 billion importing fossil fuels,
with the vast majority of that money
spent on crude oil. That money is a
direct transfer of wealth from American
consumers to oil companies and
foreign governments.
• For every dollar that an American
household spends each year, about
10 cents are likely to go toward the
purchase of energy, with most of that
money spent on fossil fuels.
Fossil fuel production and use damage
our environment and our health—
inflicting even greater damage on the
American economy and our quality of
life.
• Fossil fuel combustion is the leading
contributor to global warming, which,
in addition to being a looming environmental
and human catastrophe,
could inflict massive economic damage
as well:
o Sea level rise and an increase in the
severity of storms could put key
cities such as New York, Miami
and New Orleans at greater risk
of costly storm damage. A 2008
Natural Resources Defense Council
study estimated that high-intensity
hurricanes could cause as much as
$422 billion in damages in Atlantic
and Gulf Coast states between 2025
and 2100.
o A 2007 study by researchers at the
Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory and the Carnegie Institution
at Stanford University
found that global production of
three of the six largest global crops
experienced significant losses due
to global warming between 1981
and 2002. The study concluded that
global wheat growers, for example,
lost $2.6 billion and global corn
growers lost $1.2 billion in 2002.
o Global warming is forecast to inflict
a variety of other costs, including
declining rainfalls and rising temperatures
that will combine to cause
large and extended drought conditions
in regions like the Southwest,
and impacts on public health due
to heat-related illnesses, greater
formation of ozone smog, and increases
in vector-borne disease.
o An assessment by former World
Bank Chief Economist Sir Nicholas
Stern indicates that global warming
has the potential to reduce global
per-capita consumption by as much
as 20 percent.
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