The Presidential Candidate With a Plan to Run the US on 100% Clean Energy

[FSogol]

That leaves Martin O'Malley, the former mayor of Baltimore and two-term governor of Maryland, who's trailing all of the above in the polls. In the wake of the pope's headline-grabbing encyclical on the environment, which champions the moral need to fight global warming and calls for a swift transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, the presidential contender published an op-ed in USA Today outlining an extremely ambitious plan to do precisely that.

"I believe, within 35 years, our country can, and should, be 100% powered by clean energy, supported by millions of new jobs," O'Malley writes. "To reach this goal we must accelerate that transition starting now."

"As president, on day one, I would use my executive power to declare the transition to a clean energy future the number one priority of our Federal Government."

Whole article here:

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/martin-omalley-clean-energy-candidate

The specifics of O'Malley's plan:

-Create a national Renewable Energy Standard that would mandate 100 percent clean energy by 2050
-Launch a seemingly New Deal-styled Clean Energy Job Corps that would retrofit buildings for efficiency and build green spaces
-Have the EPA enforce a "zero tolerance" methane leak policy (currently, natural gas production releases a staggering amount of the super-greenhouse gas into the atmosphere)
-Call on Congress to enact a carbon cap that would charge companies for their carbon pollution, and return the revenue to lower and middle class families
-Deny the Keystone XL and halt offshore oil drilling in Alaska

x-posted from the O'Malley Group