EARTH DAY MESSAGE
FROM SECRETARY SALAZAR
April 22, 2009
Hello, I’m Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, wishing you a happy Earth Day, 2009.
The time has come for a new, clean energy policy for America.
An energy policy that cuts our reliance on foreign oil.
An energy policy that creates new, clean energy jobs here at home.
And an energy policy that protects our environment and our climate.
But how do we get there from here? Last year alone, we spent $700 billion to import oil from foreign countries.
The answer lies here at home, where we can power a renewable energy revolution with American resources.
Here at the Department of the Interior, we manage America’s public lands – your lands – and we are beginning to put them to use to produce clean, renewable energy.
We’re talking about new wind farms off our coasts, so that we can deliver power up and down the Eastern seaboard.
We’re talking about solar power from the deserts of the Southwest. Wind power from the Great Plains. Geothermal power from the Northwest. Biofuels.
These American landscapes, with their unharnessed renewable energy potential, are the new energy frontier for President Obama.
Here at the Department of the Interior we are opening the new energy frontier with forward-looking policies that help us protect our environment while powering a clean energy economy that will create millions of new jobs right here in America.
I hope you will follow our progress on www.doi.gov. Thanks for visiting, and Happy Earth Day, 2009.