by Jed LewisonAl Gore is speaking out against the decision to fund the $26 billion state aid package in part with $1.5 billion in cuts to renewable energy programs. From his blog:
US: Wrong Way on Renewables
As Reuters reported today, China is unveiling a $739 billion “new energy plan” which includes wind, solar and biomass as well as smart grid and distributed energy.
At the same time, Politico’s Morning Energy reported, the House of Representatives is returning this week to pass a bill that will slash $1.5 billion in renewable energy loan guarantees to help fund FMAP, a bill that will avert teacher layoffs and pay for Medicaid. Although this is an important measure, this $1.5 billion dollar cut is on top of the $2 billion dollars taken out of the renewables fund to pay for an extension to the Cash for Clunkers program. Taken together this is more than one-half of the $6 billion dollars allocated to the Energy Department for the Renewables/Transmission Loan Guarantee Program under the Recovery Act.
These rescissions put into jeopardy the green jobs that the administration have touted as part of our clean energy future and put us further behind the rest of the world.
This is really a perfect example of chasing the spiral downwards -- and it makes no political sense at all. Spending on alternative energy development is just about the most popular type of spending you find, and for good reason -- everybody understands that it's an investment in our nation's future, and it will pay off many times over, both because it will save us the expense of recovering from damage to our environment and because it will sustain economic growth in the future.
The litmus test this election isn't about which party can do a better job of managing the near-term budget deficit (which is going to be a disaster no matter how you look at it). The litmus test is which party can do a better job putting Americans back to work. Instead of cutting from renewable energy programs, we should be expanding them -- by an order of magnitude, if not more.
Talking about building a new energy economy and backing that talk up with new investments is a winning strategy. It will capture the public's imagination and inspire hope for a better future. Cutting those investments will do just the opposite.
continued at Daily Kos...
