Statement of the Interwest Energy Alliance on Passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act in the U.S. House of Representatives

26 June 2009
Contact: Craig Cox, Executive Director, Interwest Energy Alliance, 303-679-9331, cox@interwest.org

With today’s House passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, the entire nation moves closer to benefitting from increased investments in safe, cost-stable and secure American energy for American consumers. Clean, renewable energy technologies create beneficial new economic opportunities for America’s businesses and workers while addressing important environmental and climate issues.

The West, with its wealth of wind, solar, geothermal and other renewable energy resources, is poised to become the nation’s leader in these energy industries of the 21st century. Eastern Colorado, with over a thousand megawatts of wind energy already installed, is well positioned to become the West’s leader in renewable energy investments, particularly in wind energy.

The wind energy industry has already invested over a billion dollars in eastern Colorado in power generation and manufacturing facilities. With the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, wind and solar companies are poised to invest many billions more in the state, creating thousands of permanent, well-paying jobs in Colorado’s communities.

The Interwest Energy Alliance congratulates Rep. Betsy Markey and her colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives for passing the American Clean Energy and Security Act today. We look forward to working with Members of Congress and Senators to strengthen the bill’s important Renewable Electricity Standard. Colorado’s own recent experience has shown how popular and beneficial such a standard can be in creating new economic opportunities through the certainty that the standard provides to utilities in planning their future resource acquisitions.

The Interwest Energy Alliance is a trade association representing the nation’s leading wind and utility-scale solar energy industry companies, bringing them together with the West's non-governmental advocacy community. Interwest’s states of operation are Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.