In February 2009, IPL delivered a petition to President Obama and Congressional leadership, signed by thousands of people of faith across the country. The petition outlined IPL’s clean energy agenda:

We, the undersigned, of diverse faith traditions, stand together as brothers and sisters dedicated to finding solutions to global warming and the threat it poses to Creation. We urge you to take swift and meaningful action to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Global warming is a moral crisis that people of faith care deeply about. It endangers the lifesupport systems for all that God created and puts the most vulnerable at immediate risk. It is the world’s poor, who have contributed least to this problem, who will suffer the most. Inaction cannot be an option. Interfaith Power and Light represents over 5,000 congregations of all major religions throughout the country.

For the past eight years, our congregations have been changing light bulbs, installing solar rooftops and geo-thermal systems and shrinking our carbon footprints. We’ve shown that it can be done. But we know that our actions alone will not be enough to stem the tide of global warming.

It is past time for the U.S. to take a leadership role in this crisis. You have thoughtfully addressed climate change policy in your campaign and have embraced clean energy policy solutions. As president, we ask you to enact those solutions into law. Please act quickly to ensure the future of our planet, and of generations to come, by implementing our clean energy agenda:

1. Make Climate Policies Equitable and Just

• Provide energy efficiency to low-income families
• Create 5 million green collar jobs
• Provide adaptation assistance to undeveloped nations

2. Green the Electricity Sector

• Move America toward a 100% clean energy future by maximizing energy efficiency, modernizing the grid, and greatly expanding power generation from renewable energy resources

3. Cap Emissions and Auction the Permits

• Reduce emissions by 35% below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% by 2050
• Work with other nations to accelerate these reductions as needed to avoid further warming
  beyond 2º F
• Auction 100% of credits and direct revenue to developing a massive clean energy transition, creating green jobs, and protecting vulnerable communities

4. Clean up Transportation

• Invest in clean mass transit infrastructure, increase fuel economy standards, and develop alternative fuels

5. Stop New Coal

• Put a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants until and unless carbon emissions can be captured and permanently sequestered

IPL strongly supports a mandatory cap on emissions. Cap and Trade is a system developed to put a cost on carbon and provide market incentives for industry to lower emissions. However, putting a cost on carbon can raise energy prices, which disproportionately affects low-income people. Therefore, we advocate for a social justice element in any carbon pricing program. Such a social justice element could be an auction of emissions credits, for example, with part of the revenue from the sale of the credits earmarked for low-income households and for energy efficiency programs.

As communities of faith organizing a religious response to global warming, we believe that climate disruption is among the greatest challenges that humanity has ever encountered. We commit ourselves to the moral imperative of preserving and protecting the planet for generations to come. There can be no effective strategy to address climate disruption without significant restructuring of our electricity production including a rapid and just transition from antiquated coal power generation.

The current technology of burning coal to produce electricity carries huge societal costs around air and water pollution and is one of the most significant drivers of climate disruption. These external costs are not captured in the price of coal power. Every step of the current coal-fired process is dangerous to human health, from mining and processing to burning and storage of waste ash. Those most often impacted by these dangerous processes are the most vulnerable members of our communities: the poor, the elderly, and children.

Science clearly indicates that we must reduce our output of carbon dioxide and other global warming pollution. Transitioning away from coal and other fossil fuels is a crucial step in mitigating against climate disruption. In the United States that means we must halt the construction of all new coal power plants unless and until we can conclusively demonstrate safe and affordable carbon capture and storage. Existing coal plants utilizing 20th century technology should be phased out as quickly as possible as we transition to clean energy and become more energy efficient.

We know that all forms of coal mining are dangerous, imperil human health, and degrade landscapes and human communities. Particularly egregious is mountaintop removal mining, which has permanently destroyed over 500 mountains and 1500 miles of streams, while putting human communities in Appalachia in harm’s way from toxins in their air and water. We therefore oppose mountaintop removal mining and advocate for its immediate discontinuation.

As we transition to clean energy, we must work to remediate and restore the land and communities that have been degraded and economically exploited from coal mining. We support programs to provide jobs training to displaced coal workers and restoration of degraded lands.

While we recognize this transition is complex and will require significant investments, we have great faith in the ingenuity and spirit of America. We have come together many times in the past in the face of adversity and challenge. We believe we can come together for a shared purpose to make this transition to clean energy and offer a bright future for our children and grandchildren.

IPL strongly supports energy efficiency as the fastest, cheapest, and cleanest way to reduce emissions.

Interfaith Power and Light works to promote ethical, moral, just and sound solutions to global warming and energy needs. The urgency of the climate crisis demands a rapid transition to clean, safe, cost-effective energy sources. While nuclear power plants release no carbon dioxide, they do not currently meet these criteria.

For the following reasons, IPL does not believe building new nuclear plants presents a viable solution to global warming.

Cost and Timeline: The high cost and long time frame required to build new nuclear plants is prohibitive, given the immediacy of global warming. Energy efficiency and conservation are the fastest, cleanest, and cheapest ways to achieve significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions and this should be our first focus. Taking into account the entire life cycle of mining uranium (a nonrenewable resource) and disposing of the waste, nuclear power production is neither clean nor renewable. Investing billions of dollars (just one nuclear plant costs $14 billion) in this technology drains funds away from much more cost effective, rapidly deployable, and truly renewable alternatives, such as wind, geothermal, and solar power. (For more information on cost, please see economic studies referenced below)

Safety: Until scientists find a safe way way to deal with radioactive waste generated, building more nuclear power plants would be irresponsible to present and future generations. The link to weapons proliferation and terrorism cannot be avoided. Placing dangerous nuclear materials in the midst of our communities poses an unacceptable risk of a catastrophic event. Such an event could be a massive release of radiation due to a plant meltdown or a terrorist attack, and could kill tens of thousands of people as well as poison large areas with radioactivity for millennia.

Justice: As people of faith, we believe in justice that transcends generations, race and class. Our indigenous brothers and sisters in the US and throughout the world carry a disproportionate burden of past uranium mining legacies that pollute water and harm health. Passing on radioactive materials, with a half-life of 100,000 years, to thousands of generations to come is a profound moral failure. Even a small accident could cause the contamination of groundwater for 300,000 years.

As an additional justice issue, nuclear power plants require enormous amounts of fresh water, a precious resource whose growing scarcity will increasingly be at the heart of resource conflicts and the suffering of humans and other species.

Therefore, IPL urges a redoubled focus on energy efficiency, conservation, and renewable resources to avert the worst impacts of climate change.

Economic studies:

The Rocky Mountain Institute has conducted extensive economic analysis of the cost of nuclear compared to renewables. See: “The Nuclear Illusion” By Amory Lovins and Imran Sheikh
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat

The Nuclear Policy Research Instute and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research have published an excellent book detailing the possibilities for reaching a carbon free future without nuclear energy: Carbon Free and Nuclear Free, A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy by Arjun Makhijani

Taxpayers for Common Sense has documented the often overlooked and exhorbitant costs the U.S. taxpayers would be asked to absorb in the event of a nuclear accident.

Unlike no other energy source, nuclear energy is so expensive to insure that plants are essentially given subsidized insurance and a liability waiver (and have been for two generations). Liability from nuclear accidents is limited by law, shifting much of the damages to be paid by the taxpayers, or simply borne by the victims. This greatly distorts the true cost of nuclear energy, and indicates what a serious risk it poses due to catastrophic events. Taxpayers for Common Sense

IPL supports a rapid ramp up of renewable energy through a national RES. Included in the definition of renewables would be sited wind, solar, geothermal and some hydro. As much as possible renewables, should be close to the source to increase efficiency. IPL supports an RES of 25% by 2015.