Thousands of environmental voters who called Congressional Representatives to support the American Clean Energy & Security (ACES) Act helped win a major victory for the environment today. ACES will establish a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions, and will provide the incentives needed to transition our country and our economy away from our dependence on polluting fossil fuels.

Politico and the Washington Post are reporting that the vote was extremely close – 219-212.

All of us in the environmental community know that compromises were made in order to secure the necessary votes for the legislation in the House of Representatives. Some of the more progressive members of Congress believed the concessions to industries like coal and agriculture weakened the bill too much, and withheld their votes. The perfect could indeed have become the enemy of the good. But you didn’t let that happen.

While we in California are hard at work on statewide priorities including legislation and elections, we helped drum up support for ACES by activating CLCV members through our MAC (Membership Action Campaign). We called members and passed them directly through to legislative offices to voice their support for this landmark bill. Many of you answered the call and contacted your representatives to urge them to support ACES. Thank you for doing your part and making your voice heard.

In celebration of this moment, I’d like to share some of President Obama’s comments yesterday on the urgency of passing this legislation:

“The nation that leads in the creation of a clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy…. Now is the time for us to lead. The energy bill before the House will finally create a set of incentives that will spark a clean energy transformation of our economy. It will spur the development of low carbon sources of energy… it will spur new energy savings… and most importantly it will make possible the creation of millions of new jobs.”

“Make no mistake; this is a jobs bill. We’re already seeing why this is true in the clean energy investments we’re making through the Recovery Act. In California, 3,000 people will be employed to build a new solar plant that will create 1,000 jobs… The list goes on and on, but the point is this: This legislation will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy. That will lead to the creation of new businesses and entire new industries, and that will lead to American jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced…”

“We’ve been talking about this issue for decades. And now is the time to finally act. There’s no disagreement over whether our dependence on foreign oil is endangering our security. We know it is. There’s no longer a debate about whether carbon pollution is placing our planet in jeopardy. It’s happening. And there’s no longer a question about whether the jobs and industries of the 21st century will be centered around clean, renewable energy. The only question is: Which country will create these jobs and these industries? And I want that answer to be the United States of America.”

The President outlined why passage of this legislation is so crucial for the future of the United States. This is a climate change bill, a jobs bill, and a national security bill. We celebrate its passage in the House.