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Argument: Synthetic biology can help fight climate change and pollution

Issue Report: Artificial life

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Rep. Henry Waxman (Democrat, California), Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a May 2010 hearing on the topic of synthetic biology: “Synthetic biology also has the potential to reduce our dependence on oil and to address climate change. Research is underway to develop microbes that would produce oil, giving us a renewable fuel that could be used interchangeably with gasoline without creating more global warming pollution. Research could also lead to oil-eating microbes, an application that, as the Gulf spill unfortunately demonstrates, would be extremely useful.”[1]