Washington, DC - Clean Water Action's President and CEO responded to the release of U.S. Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman's draft American Power Act with the following statement:

"Legislation unveiled today by Sens. Kerry and Lieberman offers an encouraging path forward on the twin challenges of reducing climate-changing pollution and regaining a leadership role for the U.S. in creating the clean energy economy that will drive the global economy of the future.

America needs the jobs and other economic benefits that can flow from the right strategy for reducing energy pollution, developing cleaner, more efficient technologies, and reducing the nation's damaging over-reliance on oil and other fuels of the past.

Nothing illustrates the urgency of our present situation like the ever-widening BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf. As the Senate debate unfolds, one critical indicator of this legislation's potential for bringing real change will be the way in which it handles energy's impacts on our water.

There's more to the story than offshore drilling and oil, since other strategies under consideration also threaten devastating water impacts which would far outweigh any possible global warming benefits. Proposed taxpayer support for reviving the failed nuclear power industry is a prime example.

Clean Water Action advocates for an energy policy and climate solutions that make water protection a litmus test for sustainability. Energy technologies that degrade and deplete the nation's water resources must be replaced with those which preserve and protect them."