According to a White House pool report, Vice President Joe Biden made the following statement yesterday at a political fundraiser:

“Republican opponents ‘remain in a sort of catatonic state about what they’re going to do,’ Biden said. ‘Have you heard one concrete alternative put forth by the opposition’ on health care or energy independence?”

Evidently Vice President Biden wasn’t paying attention to the news on June 10^th when House Republicans introduced the American Energy Act (H.R. 2846).

• House Republicans draft energy bill with heavy focus on nuclear power (New York Times 6/9/2009)
• House Republican energy plan backs nuclear reactors (Bloomberg 6/10/09)
• GOP unveils energy plan (Politico 6/11/2009)

The Republicans’ American Energy Act is a “concrete alternative” to the Democrats’ National Energy Tax.

Unlike the Democrats’ proposal that will spike energy bills, kill jobs and increase our dependence on foreign oil, the American Energy Act is an all-of-the-above plan to create all types of jobs, reduce carbon emissions, increase U.S. energy production and protect the environment. The Republican bill includes specific measures to encourage development of renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, hydropower, nuclear and biomass, while also producing more American-made oil and natural gas.

Highlights of the American Energy Act:

• Creates a Renewable and Alternative Energy Trust Fund to provide funding for renewable energy projects such as biomass, hydroelectric, clean coal, solar, wind, and geothermal by taking a portion of the revenue raised from new offshore oil and gas leasing.

• Establishes a national goal to bring 100 new nuclear reactors online over the next 20 years to strengthen America’s commitment to clean, reliable energy.

• Increases the supply of American energy by immediately moving forward with a leasing program on the Outer Continental Shelf.

• Increases American energy by opening the Arctic Coastal Plain to exploration in an environmentally-sound manner, which could provide an additional 1 million barrels of oil per day.

• Increases American supplies of gasoline and diesel by encouraging greater refinery capacity by streamlining and accelerating the refinery permitting process.

• Codifies the oil shale lease program and restores leasing activities that were already underway prior to being halted in February 2009 by the current Administration.

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