Stop Putin by Sending Heat Pumps to Europe

Stop Putin by Sending Heat Pumps to Europe

Started
March 12, 2022
Victory
This petition made change with 3,009 supporters!

Why this petition matters

Started by Lillian Fortuna

Dear President Biden:

Right now your administration is taking advice from big fossil fuel companies regarding what to do about Europe’s dependency on Russian oil and gas. These companies want to increase production of natural gas here and ship it to Europe as a replacement for Russian gas, which, surprise, happens to be enormously profitable for them. Sadly, your administration has granted more drilling leases than the Trump administration just as data has emerged showing the industry was undercounting its methane emissions by 70%. It is really surprising that you are choosing this solution instead of using this moment as an opportunity to help Europe switch to ever-cleaner electricity, which is what will really undercut Putin’s power. Environmentalist Bill McKibben has an amazing plan to do just that.

We are writing to ask you to immediately invoke the Defense Production Act to get American manufacturers to start producing electric heat pumps in quantity, so we can ship them to Europe where they can be installed in time to dramatically lessen Putin’s power. 

The most recent estimates from Europe maintain that the current electric grid could handle fifty million heat pumps. We could provide them at cost—or below cost—to Europeans, just as we did with the “lend-lease” program in the run-up to World War II.

The Defense Production Act allows this to happen without having to convince the obstructionists in our Congress, and if manufacturers had a guaranteed federal contract, they could ramp up production quickly: perhaps by fifty percent in a month, and before the summer was out by far more. There would be supply chain issues, but experts think they’d be manageable.

To give you a sense of the political attractiveness of the proposition, six of the companies that could benefit (Carrier in Palm Beach Gardens, FL; Daikin in Waller, TX; Johnson Controls in Milwaukee, WI; Lennox International in Richardson, TX; Mitsubishi Electric in Suwanee, GA; and Trane Technologies in Davidson, NC) are headquartered in swing states. 

Ari Matusiak, the CEO of the non-profit Rewiring America, accurately describes our opportunity:

It's time we enlarge our understanding of the principle of collective defense enshrined in Article 5 of NATO's founding treaty. That article calls on the member countries to take the action they deem necessary "to restore and maintain the security of the North America area." If the President combines that view of collective defense with the invocation of the Defense Production Act, we can start manufacturing the heat pumps that will electrify the 75 million homes in Europe and the UK dependent on Russian gas for their heat. Every home electrified with an American flag-stamped heat pump will provide European leaders with more political ballast because they will be alleviating economic pain for their people. It will also enable us to create a new industry — resulting in hundreds of thousands of jobs subsidized with European investment — that will spur the transformation of our own economy. This vigorous, proud and confident reclaiming of our trans-Atlantic alliance gives us a real shot at winning the climate fight once and for all. What's not to like?

You must go to work now—right now. Not next year, not after the midterms. Now. We urge you to make good now on some of your energy promises and some of your manufacturing promises—and help Ukraine to defeat Putin before it’s too late.

 

 

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This petition made change with 3,009 supporters!

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