Governor Gregoire Signs Executive Order to Reduce Emissions and Build a Clean Energy Economy (As Written)

February 7, 2007

Thank you for joining me here today as we prepare to take action on climate change and thank you for working together to reduce our impact on the climate.

Special thanks to Sen. Poulsen and County Executive Ron Sims for bringing forward your plans to reduce emissions and to Mayor Greg Nickels for championing local action on this important issue.

I�m pleased to see a broad cross-section of people here, representatives of business and environmental groups, the Lands Commissioner, Insurance Commissioner, legislators, and government leaders.

If we tackle this together, we can make a difference!

At a global level, there is scientific consensus that our climate is changing.

Just last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded our planet�s atmosphere has more greenhouse gases in it now than any time during the last 650,000 years.

It is equally clear that humans are causing our climate to change by burning massive amounts of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.

Eleven of the last 12 years have been the warmest years on record.

Scientists at the University of Washington tell us that:

• Temperatures in the state are rising even faster than globally.
  
• Our glaciers have lost one-third of their volume since 1950.
  
• Snowpack in the Cascades � which cities, fish and farmers rely on for water � is declining.
  
• And our summers are drier as the snowpack melts earlier each year.

Working together we can find solutions that reverse our contributions to climate pollution.

Corporations including BP, ALCOA, Wal-Mart, Avista and Puget Sound Energy have all announced efforts to reduce their impact on the climate. Companies represented here today are also taking steps � in their own business interest � that contribute to climate solutions.

And at the state level, we have taken a number of steps as well, including:

• Adopting the 2005 Clean Car Act requiring certain automobiles to meet tougher emissions standards beginning with 2009 models;
  
• Retrofitting 50% of school buses and 20% of local government diesel-engine vehicles to reduce highly toxic diesel emissions;
  
• Leading the nation in requiring fuel suppliers to ensure that 2% of the fuel they sell is biodiesel or ethanol;
  
• Leading the nation in adopting high-performance green building standards and having one of the most energy-efficient building codes in the nation;
  
• Implementing the best energy efficiency standards for appliances;
  
• Passing a clean energy initiative to increase the amount of energy efficiency and renewable resources in our state�s electricity system;
  
• Purchasing hybrid and low emission vehicles for state agency use; and
  
• Adopting the Columbia River Water Management Act, which will work toward meeting the water storage needs for agriculture, communities and salmon.

Today we take the next step and set ambitious goals to reduce pollution that leads to climate change, grow our clean energy economy and move toward energy independence.

By 2020, we�ll reduce our emissions to what they were in 1990, and reduce them by another 25 percent by 2035. By 2050, our goal is climate stabilization and we will reduce emissions to 50 percent below our 1990 levels.

Thanks to our previous successes, we are two-thirds of the way toward our 2020 emissions goal, and one-third toward the 2050 target.

Meeting these emission reduction goals also means growing the clean energy economy, a sector that grew 45 percent between 1998 and 2004. Washington can continue to be a leader in the new, cleaner economy, with another 25,000 new jobs by 2020, a three-fold increase.

I am asking Jay Manning and Juli Wilkerson to bring all of you together, work with your ideas, and coordinate our efforts to reduce emissions and build a clean energy economy.

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