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Shooting victim politician a renewable energy hero

a vocal supporter of renewable energy, and solar power in particular. Politico notes that Giffords’s first speech after she was initially elected in 2006 contained a call to repeal tax incentives for oil companies in favor of support for renewable energy…..She believed that sunny Arizona could become the “Silicon Valley of solar,” though she was aware of the political challenges.

Politics: Gabrielle Giffords Is a Green Patriot, TIME,  by Bryan Walsh  January 10, 2011 “……Giffords was still in a medically induced coma after being shot in the head Saturday morning in Tucson.)……… Giffords also took some heat from right-wing opponents over her support of carbon cap-and-trade legislation, which passed the House in June 2009 before dying in the Senate, although climate change legislation has never quite reached the partisan pitch that the battle over health care did—in part because energy and climate change isn’t a high priority on most voters’ minds.
Those issues did matter to Giffords, however, who not only voted in favor of cap-and-trade—not a popular position in her conservative Arizona district—but was a vocal supporter of renewable energy, and solar power in particular.

Politico notes that Giffords’s first speech after she was initially elected in 2006 contained a call to repeal tax incentives for oil companies in favor of support for renewable energy. She also wanted to establish a Strategic Renewable Energy Reserve, similar to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve used as an emergency backup for U.S. oil supplies.

She also introduced the Solar Technology Roadmap Act, which would have allocated $2 billion to research and demonstration projects for solar energy. (That bill passed the House in 2009, but like so much else, never made headway in the Senate.) And Giffords walked the talk—she installed a 2 kW solar photovoltaic system in her home in Tucson last year. She believed that sunny Arizona could become the “Silicon Valley of solar,” though she was aware of the political challenges.

Politics: Wounded Representative Giffords Is a Supporter of Solar, Cap-and-Trade – Ecocentric – TIME.com

January 13, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA