No bragging, just fact.

Florida is leading the way to break our national dependence on foreign oil and build an economy based on clean, American-made energy.

As the former Secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection under former Gov. Jeb Bush, I take pride in Florida's achievements on this front. In the last year of Bush's term we began to lay the groundwork for addressing Florida's climate and energy challenges, and Gov. Charlie Crist was smart to take up this mantle.

It's good for Florida, good for the country and good for our state's environment. As the world focused over the past two weeks on transforming our energy future during discussions in Copenhagen it is important to note that the vision of a clean, green Florida is a reality right now, even as we struggle to emerge from a steep economic slump. And our state can do even better if Congress passes the clean-energy legislation now in front of it.

Let me illustrate: You've heard about ethanol made from corn. But the future is cellulosic ethanol, made from grasses and nonfood crops like sorghum. And Florida -- not Iowa -- is in the lead.

Thanks in part to a generous grant from the Florida Department of Agriculture and the Governor's Energy Office, the nation's first-ever cellulosic ethanol plant is being constructed in Highlands County. The factory will take crops grown right next door on 35,000 acres of Lykes Brothers farmland, and turn them into 36 million gallons of fuel every year.

The facility will create 140 high-paying, permanent, full-time jobs. And the company plans to build a second plant on the Gulf Coast, putting still more people to work. Florida's biofuel industry is developing clean, green jobs here in our state.

And it's not just biofuels. Better batteries will be crucial both to powering electric vehicles and to making wind and solar power more grid-friendly. Here, too, Florida is at the front of the crowd.

One of the world's leading makers of advanced batteries, Saft, chose Jacksonville as the site for a new plant. Where the Cecil Field military base used to stand, workers will manufacture cutting-edge lithium-ion batteries for use in planes and military vehicles. And to store solar power.

Saft expects to employ hundreds of workers at the new plant. Up against dozens of competitors, the Jacksonville plant won a $95 million federal stimulus grant for high-tech batteries.

Meanwhile, our own Florida Power & Light has finished building a solar-energy center in Arcadia, east of Sarasota. And not just any solar energy center -- the largest photovoltaic facility in the country.

During construction, the solar site has provided as many as 400 jobs in DeSoto County. And now that it's complete, FPL harnesses more than 90,000 photovoltaic panels to generate pollution-free electricity to more than 1,000 homes.

That's just one of three solar sites in the works at FPL. The company has 1,000 people building a solar thermal plant in Martin County, and FPL will create another 100 jobs at its planned plant at the Kennedy Space Center in 2010. When all are completed, FPL will have 110 megawatts of capacity in the state -- making Florida the second-biggest state in the country for solar energy.

What's behind this explosion in green entrepreneurship?

A lot of it has to do with the hard work and initiative of Florida business. And a lot of it comes from Crist's leadership. With help from his Action Team on Energy and Climate Change, Crist has fought to make his vision of a clean, prosperous Florida a reality. That's why among the businesses that are hiring in the midst of a recession, many are bright green.

How can we keep the momentum going -- and do even better? The Governor's Climate and Energy Action Team's top recommendation is that Florida should support a national clean-energy law, including a ceiling on carbon pollution. That's the smart tool we used to solve the acid-rain problem at a bargain price.

The U.S. House has passed H.R. 2454 to cap carbon emissions. Now the ball is in the Senate's court. This legislation will be good for Florida's environment and, just as important, good for our economy.

Florida has already started down the path to rebuilding our economy based on a clean-energy foundation. Now is the time for Florida's representatives in Washington to turbocharge Florida's green entrepreneurs by putting a price on carbon.

Colleen Castille is managing partner of Go Green Strategies, an environmental consulting firm in Tallahassee.