Date: June 8, 2011
Source: Reuters
Sen. John Boozman, a Republican with little ‘green’ cred, has become an unexpected ally for efforts to spark installation of rooftop solar power systems
WASHINGTON—With members of Congress up to their armpits in acrimony on Capitol Hill, Sen. Bernie Sanders figures bipartisanship isn’t enough to advance ideas anymore.
So he is trying a broadened approach to lift legislators out of that muddled morass: tripartisanship.
The adept Vermont independent has lured New Mexico Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman and Arkansas Republican Sen. John Boozman into co-sponsoring his reinvented measure aimed at sparking installation of solar power systems atop 10 million homes and businesses within the next decade.
Sanders expects his “10 Million Solar Roofs Act of 2011″ (S. 1108) to have its first public airing this month at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, a panel Bingaman chairs.
His measure is designed to be executed in tandem with SunShot, a Department of Energy initiative unveiled in February. SunShot is geared at dropping the price of homegrown solar so it is competitive with coal and other conventional fuels. In a nutshell, Sanders’s bill would recognize and reward communities intent on streamlining cumbersome solar energy permitting processes into economical and efficient models.
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