Our nation’s legislators will return back to work after Labor Day. Will the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico still be fresh in their minds? It’s still fresh in my mind, and in the minds of the millions of people affected by this environmental catastrophe.

We need your help to ensure that President Obama, members of Congress, and policy makers throughout government don’t forget the critical message this disaster has sent: We must end our nation’s debilitating addiction to oil.

Become a member today and help the Union of Concerned Scientists reduce America’s dependence on oil.

With your support, we’ll work to implement our National Oil Savings Plan—a set of practical solutions, based on sound science and existing and emerging technologies, that has the potential to cut our projected oil demand for 2030 in half!

Cars, trucks, planes, trains, and ships are responsible for 70 percent of the oil and related petroleum products used in the United States. Therefore, UCS will work to:

• Double fuel economy standards for new cars and light trucks through 2025 and establish first-of-a-kind standards for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles like tractor trailers and buses;
• Create the right incentives and infrastructure to support a substantial increase in plug-in hybrid, battery, and fuel-cell electric vehicles; and
• Increase investments in and production of advanced biofuels that don’t require clearing land or diverting food products like corn to energy production.

Technologies to get the job done already exist. What’s needed now is the political will to stand up to Big Oil and break America’s addiction to dirty fossil fuels. Please become a member today.

In the face of public outrage over the environmental disaster in the Gulf, Big Oil continues to wield enormous influence over U.S. energy policy, benefitting from multi-billion-dollar tax breaks and lax regulation of drilling operations.

But with your help, I’m confident this is a fight we can win. More important, it’s a fight we must win, or our country and our children will continue to witness the disastrous impacts of America’s oil dependence. Please become a member today.

With your support, we can turn up the heat on politicians to end our dangerous addiction to oil.

Sincerely, Kevin Knobloch President

P.S. The extraordinary scope of the BP oil disaster demands an extraordinary response. Getting mad at oil company executives, while justified and cathartic, won’t be good enough. Thank you, in advance, for putting your anger into action by becoming a member today.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading U.S. science-based nonprofit organization working for a healthy environment and a safer world. Founded in 1969, UCS is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also has offices in Berkeley, Chicago and Washington, D.C. To subscribe or visit go to:  http://www.ucsusa.org