FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 17, 2008

More than 25,000 letters sent to Congress reject Internet giant’s $4 trillion boondoggle

ALEXANDRIA, VA – The Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) today announced that its activists and supporters have flooded Members of Congress with more than 25,000 letters during the past week expressing outrage over an expensive, dubiously beneficial energy plan being peddled by Internet titan Google.

As outlined in its proposal, the company is calling on the federal government to spend $4.4 trillion in U.S. taxpayer money on alternative fuels in an effort to completely eliminate our nation’s use of fossil fuels. However, the only thing that’s “green” about Google’s plan is its ignorance on energy issues.

Google proposes establishing wind and solar as primary power sources. But those fuel sources – while they show future promise – now account for only a tiny fraction of America’s total power generation. Even assuming a 20 percent growth rate for the next 22 years (a feat even their staunchest supporters believe to be impossible), wind and solar would still meet less than five percent of the world’s energy demand.

“Google’s proposal is arrogant, naïve and dangerous, not to mention ironically anti-energy,” explains Timothy Lee, CFIF’s Director of Legal and Public Affairs. “The Internet company shows its self-fulfilling naiveté by suggesting a total elimination of fossil fuels—a notion even the most radical energy experts reject. This, at a time when the American people are struggling to pay prices at the pump.”

“True experts who - unlike Google - have experience and credibility in the energy field believe that only an ‘all of the above’ approach incorporating both traditional and alternative fuels will best meet America’s energy challenges,” Lee said. “Google barging in and attempting to act as dominant advisor on U.S. energy policy is just as absurd as Coca-Cola dictating our country’s Internet policy.

“If Google wants to spend its own money on a naïve energy proposal, it should have at it,” said Lee. “But taxpayers should not be stuck with a $4.4 trillion bill, much of which would go directly to pad Google’s bottom line.”

Founded in 1998, the Center for Individual Freedom (www.cfif.org) is a constitutional and free-market advocacy organization with more than 250,000 supporters and activists nationwide.