Janice Hahn: “I think it is time that we begin to allow Americans to ease off their dependence of oil and give them a real…”

“I think it is time that we begin to allow Americans to ease off their dependence of oil and give them a real alternative. Every day, we see the damage done by our dependence on oil. We see high gas prices threatening our economic recovery and burdening families already struggling to make ends meet. We see higher respiratory disease rates. And we see any number of distant regimes holding our foreign policy hostage, weakening our ability to stand by our principles and our friends. I think it's time for us to throw off these burdens and step into the future, not double down on the dependencies of the past. Yet somehow this bill allocates almost five times more funding to deepening and extending our relationship with fossil energy than it does on advancing energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy technologies. One of the most promising and necessary things we can do to give Americans an alternative to oil is to speed our transition to electric vehicles. Passenger cars alone use more than 40 percent of the oil consumed in this country. By 2020, the Natural Resources Defense Council estimates Americans will spend $260 billion a year on gas. Just think of what we stand to gain from helping Americans switch to electric vehicles. The technology is here, and all we need to do is implement it.…”