Can Cap and Dividend Really Save the Economy or the Planet?

A clean energy economic stimulus plan could truly be climate advocates' "Trojan horse," as columnist Eric Pooley writes. But NOT if they follow Pooley's advice about how to formulate that plan and advance a full-on, economy-wide Cap and Dividend program next year.

The economy is all that matters now, and climate advocates - and the next President - would be wise to develop a strategic "Trojan horse" to advance their ecological goals within the framework of economic recovery. That's the thesis of "Save the Economy, Save the Planet," an article appearing in Slate last week by Eric Pooley.

Pooley gets the political analysis right, accurately diagnosing the potentially incurable political malady that dooms the chances of expansive carbon regulation in today's economic climate. But when it comes time to prescribe the remedy, Pooley is off-the-mark, arguing that a Cap and Dividend proposal is just what the doctor ordered.

Sorry, but that's the wrong answer. Unfortunately, Pooley is not alone in his prescribed solution, and it's time we took a close look at the obstacles to climate action and see just how far Cap and Dividend gets us (hint: it's not very far...)

Pooley, a longtime financial editor and columnist and a current Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, starts his column with an accurate analysis of the political situation:

"[A]t this moment of deep economic distress, warnings about future climate impacts aren't going to [be politically popular]. That much has been clear since June, when $4-a-gallon gasoline helped snuff the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act and the nation's hopes and dreams began shifting from save the planet to "drill, baby, drill." Opponents of Lieberman-Warner claimed it would jack up energy costs, throw people out of work, and kill the U.S. economy; supporters responded that its impact wouldn't be that bad. Not that bad is not that good a strategy, and green leaders realized then that if they were ever going to break the political logjam, they had to drive home a more optimistic economic message."

With the economy dominating the political arena, arguing within an economic revitalization framework is a huge opportunity - perhaps the only opportunity - to advance policies that will drive the key solutions to the climate crisis: the massive deployment of clean energy technologies and a dramatic increase in end-use energy efficiency. A clean energy economic stimulus plan could truly be climate and clean energy advocates' "Trojan horse," as Pooley puts it.

But not if they follow Pooley's advice about how to formulate that plan: continue to advance a full-on, economy-wide cap and trade program raising "$100-600 billion annually" (which translates into a CO2 price of $15-100 per metric ton at today's emissions levels). Pooley recommends that $15 billion or so per year would go to clean energy R&D, but he argues that the vast bulk of the funds should be sent right back to energy consumers in the form of dividend checks "to make sure the fix doesn't cost too much."

These dividend payments, designed to cover the increased costs of energy under the carbon pricing scheme, will some how make this bill magically possible, Pooley claims. Sorry, but this strategy, known as Cap and Dividend, is the wrong answer.

In order to succeed, any strategy to advance climate policy must overcome several very real obstacles. Unfortunately, adding dividends to the mix while advancing the same old cap and trade scheme doesn't help overcome any of them. Let's look at the facts...

Obstacle One: Public Opinion

Support for action on climate change is considered wide but notoriously shallow, and that's where Cap and Dividend is supposed to excel.

As Pooley writes:

"Yes, putting a price on carbon, whether through a tax or cap-and-trade, will drive up household energy costs in the short and medium term before reducing them in the long term, as alternative energy comes on line. Still, receiving an annual check from the climate bill's allowance auctions might persuade some to support it."

So how many people need persuading?

Sadly, only eighteen percent of the American public expressed strong belief that global warming is real, that it is caused by humans, and that it is harmful, according to a poll released last week and commissioned by the Alliance for Climate Protection (Al Gore's folks) and a coalition of environmental groups. Eighteen percent!

The poll found a stark partisan divide among respondents as well, with just 54% of Republicans polled even confirming that global warming is happening, let alone that it is human-caused and requires action.

That's a long way from the strong public support needed to make high carbon prices politically sustainable, and that means there's a lot of heavy lifting for those dividend checks to do.

Surprisingly, Cap and Dividend advocates are hard-pressed to find any concrete evidence - beyond anecdotes about Alaska's popular oil royalty-funded annual rebate checks - to support the assertion that the proposal is popular with the public. If anyone has hard numbers on Cap and Dividend's public appeal, I'd love to see them, especially since this is the crux of the argument for a dividend scheme.

Unfortunately, the only public opinion numbers I've seen don't look good for Cap and Dividend.

Those numbers come from a 2007 study [PDF] the Breakthrough Institute commissioned with the Nathan Cummings Foundation to test the public appeal of several approaches to the climate crisis, including a Cap and Dividend proposal. Barely 51 percent of respondents supported Cap and Dividend when it was tested. Furthermore, that support dropped to just 31 percent after respondents heard likely arguments against Cap and Dividend (respondents were told that the proposal would likely raise energy prices and result in a new government entitlement program).

So is Cap and Dividend the heavy lifter with the public we need? It doesn't look like it.

In contrast, polls have found consistent and deep support for actions to address economic insecurity, foreign energy dependency and increasing energy prices. The same 2007 study found that 85% of those polled supported a $300 billion, ten year investment to develop low-cost clean energy technologies and industries. Support stayed at 54% even after arguments were made against the Apollo-project style clean energy investment plan (respondents were told that there was no plan to pay for the proposal, increasing either taxes or deficit spending, and that despite spending hundreds of billions, the proposal wouldn't require polluting industries to reduce emissions).

At a time of economic recession, wouldn't public investment programs designed to directly stimulate the economy with investments in clean energy technology draw significantly greater public support than an effort to sugar-coat a carbon pricing program with dividend checks?

Obstacle Two: Elite Opinion (aka the "Technology Sixteen")

As we reported last week, sixteen Democratic senators we've dubbed the "Technology Sixteen" are aligning themselves to take control of the climate debate. These sixteen Democrats have all voiced substantive concerns with the cap and trade approach advanced by climate advocates this summer and indicated that they would have voted No on the failed Lieberman-Warner bill. Given the fact that this new gang of senators represents almost one third of the Democratic caucus in the Senate, the concerns of the Tech Sixteen must be addressed if climate policy has any hope in the United States Senate.

That presents a big problem for Cap and Dividend advocates.

To start with, the Tech Sixteen are far more concerned about the impacts of carbon pricing on their business, industry, labor and ag constituencies than they are with the cost to end-use energy consumers. That's why the Tech Sixteen are primarily concerned with cost-containment, technology development and deployment, and perks for the special interests in their districts (i.e. eligibility for ag sector offsets, incentives for utilities and manufacturing, etc.) - not on securing dividends for consumers.

The "Tech Sixteen" want to see a low carbon price and more spending on efforts to make clean energy cheap. So tell me how we get this critical block of senators to support a Cap and Dividend proposal designed to enact the highest carbon price possible and rebate nearly all of the revenue to consumers, leaving very little to spend on clean technology development and deployment (let alone their special interest constituencies)?

In short: it's hard to see how Cap and Dividend will sweeten the pot at all with the critical Tech Sixteen.

Obstacle Three: Effectiveness (aka the Market Fundamentalist Myth)

Finally, all this talk about Cap and Dividend is premised on the argument that we simply need a high price on carbon to correct market failures, driving the deployment of clean energy technologies and increased end-use efficiency that is the end goal.

Unfortunately, this is simply a market fundamentalist myth.

The "carbon pricing will save us" myth ignores the critical role government frequently plays in deploying enabling infrastructure (just consider for a moment the effects of rural electrification and the interstate highway system on the economy we take for granted today); driving technology innovation (while the Apple I may have been soldered together in Steve Wozniak's garage, the technologies that enabled the personal computer and the internet revolution were all developed in government labs); and supporting strategic emerging industries (e.g. incentives for emerging biomed and nanotechnology industries).

And just how high a price would you need to drive major increases in end-use efficiency or conservation?

Well, you'd need to have a CO2 price of $113 per ton to increase gasoline prices by just $1 per gallon. In the past two years, we've seen prices skyrocket by $2 dollars per gallon and yet have seen just a tiny dent in gasoline consumption (and emissions). So you have to ask yourself, what price will be sufficient to drive deep emissions reductions in the transportation sector?

Again, wouldn't it be smarter to focus directly on incentives to electrify transportation and get Americans and their stuff out of cars, planes and long-haul trucks? We could make investments to help Detroit retool to produce the most advanced vehicles in the world, support the mass development and deployment of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and build new high-speed electric rail and functional mass transit systems, and reinvest in efficient freight rail. And that's a strategy with direct economic benefits.

All this argues not for higher carbon prices but for more investment ... and again, that's a function not very well served by Cap and Dividend.

Conclusion

This economic crisis does present a key opportunity to advance critical investments in clean energy and energy efficiency. But a Cap and Dividend scheme is still a non-starter in the halls of the U.S. Senate - not to mention with the US public.

Today, we face an urgent moment: a new political climate is unfolding, a new president will soon be elected, and a ticking clock of climate feedback loops is winding down. We simply cannot afford another run through the U.S. Senate with a climate bill doomed to failure from the start.

For those who feel the urgency of our climate crisis as I do, we now face a critical time to (re)assess the current political climate and seize on any opportunities to advance real solutions it may present.

Our best hope would seem to be to advance a package of strategic investments framed explicitly and primarily about economic recovery and job creation.

If a clear economic imperative exists, we are apparently willing to put $700 billion (and counting) of taxpayer dollars on the line. There simply does not exist, nor will there exist any similarly strong political imperative motivated by climate concerns at any point in the near future. So we have to look elsewhere if we want to advance solutions to our climate crisis and find a real Trojan horse.

What we need is a new clean energy-focused economic recovery bill, not the next incarnation of a climate bill. In today's political climate, that seems to be our best, if not only, option.

[Originally posted at the Breakthrough Blog]

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Graph of the Day, October 19th, 2008

Something to consider as we figure out how to get our economy back on track...



From the Sightline Institute. There's another one below the fold...



[Originally posted at the Breakthrough Blog]

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Remember That Other Economic Crisis?

Back before Wall Street was burning, Main Street was already feeling the heat from another very real economic crisis: the soaring price of oil. The credit crisis and our slowing economy have driven oil prices down and the energy crisis out of our minds, for now. But that doesn't mean the threat - to our economy and our quality of life - is gone. If we ever want our economy to truly recover, we'd be wise not to forget the other economic crisis.

I know it's hard to remember, given the events of the past weeks, but back before Wall Street was burning, Main Street was already feeling the heat from another very real economic crisis: the soaring price of oil.

The credit crisis and our slowing economy have driven oil prices down from historic highs. As stocks plummeted in the past two weeks, so to did the price of crude, falling by more than half, down from it's July record of over $140 to under $70 this week. That's the lowest price in fourteen months, but it's still three times higher than it was just six years ago, and prices are still over $3.00 a gallon across the nation.

Still, as prices at the pump have receded and the focus on the banking bailout bumped "Drill Baby, Drill!" out of the presidential election spotlight, the energy crisis is now out of most of our minds. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean the threat - to our economy and our quality of life - is gone. Oil prices will rise again - they are already inching up again amidst news of a likely OPEC cutback in production - and when they do, they'll continue to drag down our struggling economy. If we ever hope to see real economic recovery, we would be wise not to forget the other crisis that contributed to today's ailing economy.

I'll delve into this more next week, but for now, enjoy the new article in this weekend's New York Times Magazine (online here) by Roger Lowenstein, entitled "What's Really Wrong With the Price of Oil," which takes a close look at the temporarily forgotten but very real threat oil prices pose to our economic wellbeing. Excerpts below the fold...

Back before the mortgage meltdown turned into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the country's big economic problem was energy. The presidential campaign was on fire over what to "do" about the price of oil. Gas cost more than $4 a gallon, it was slowing down the economy, people were driving fewer miles and they were flying less. Believe it or not, this was an economic crisis that affected people who didn't happen to be pinstriped bankers, hedge-fund managers or cabinet officials. You didn't have to read the stock-market columns to know it was happening. Ordinary people started walking to town or skipping errands -- taking the compact and not the S.U.V. Actually, I did that. And then, the price of oil plummeted, first because of slowing demand and recently amid panic selling during the credit crisis. And as it plunged more than 40 percent from its record high of $147 a barrel, the issue has faded.

Well, gas still costs $3.50 a gallon, and the price of a barrel of oil, last week close to $80, still is four times what it was all of six years ago. If that doesn't sound like a big deal, consider that in the half-dozen years of the housing boom, residential home prices rose only 125 percent, whereas oil prices, even now, are 300 percent higher than they were six years ago. So the energy issue is still here. Remember the winter after Katrina, when home-heating-fuel prices caused an uproar? This winter they are likely to be much higher.

When the new president takes office, high energy costs will be -- as they are already -- a drag on the economy, one that is becoming conflated with the credit crisis. Last month, the U.S. auto industry sold fewer than one million cars -- its slowest sales rate in 15 years. Tight credit and high gas prices each contributed to that. There is no way to completely unravel the two, but here is one fact: In the early part of this decade, when oil was cheap, Americans spent only 2 percent of their income on gasoline. Recently they have been spending about 4.5 percent -- more than twice as much. And you can bet that the percentage is higher among families with lower incomes.

The full article is online here and on news stands Sunday...

[Originally posted at the Breakthrough Blog]

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"I call those people dirty greens" - Quote of Day: October 10th, 2008

"I call those people the dirty greens. They say drill, do tar sands and oil
shale, turn coal into liquid fuel-whatever! Burn kittens, as long as they're
American kittens. Toast the planet!"

-Van Jones, president of Green For All, on the "All of the Above" energy "solutions" embraced by folks like Newt Gingrich (in a great article by Eric Pooley about the shifting strategies to advance climate solutions).

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Repower America? ABC Says They'd Rather Take Dirty Oil Money

ABC refused to run a Repower America ad from the We Campaign because it apparently threatened their cozy relationship with oil and coal companies and the dirty money they are throwing at corporate media for slick greenwashing ads. Here's the scoop...

If you're like me, you've been obsessively watching each of the presidential debates over the past weeks. If so, you must have noticed the ever-present oil and coal company ads proclaiming their commitment to overcoming today's pressing energy and ecological problems with new innovative solutions: aka, their dirty old products repackaged and resold as "clean" and "green."

CNN's debate coverage has been sponsored by a coal industry front group, and CBS has ExxonMobil fronting the bill. Perhaps the slickest of the ad campaigns, Chevron's "Human Energy" ads are playing everywhere, trying to imply that the oil company is really on your side in the effort to conserve energy - aka buy less of their product! As if!

In short, it seems like this year's presidential election is essentially "brought to you by your friends at ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, and Peabody Coal."

To counter this flood of dirty oil money taking over the network and cable news channels, the We Campaign has been running Repower America ads, calling on America's leaders to truly repower our nation with 100% clean energy. The Repower America ads are running on several networks, including CBS, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, and MSNBC... but not on ABC!

ABC, the only network to reject the ad, had no problem running any of the oil and coal industry spots during their debate coverage. But when the We Campaign wanted to buy an ad slot during ABC's news magazine, 20/20, the network flat out refused to air the ad!

Why would they turn down the We Campaign, which was offering to pay top dollar for prime airtime? Because the ad had this to say:



That's right, We's ad called the oil and coal companies out for spending gobs of cash - on ads, lobbyists and more - to block efforts to truly Repower America, and ABC apparently couldn't run an ad questioning their main cash cow! That'd just be bad business, I guess.

ABC had a bogus official excuse, of course (republished here courtesy of We via the Wonk Room):

Per our Guidelines, national buildings may be used in advertising provided the depictions are incidental to the advertiser’s promotion of the product or service. Given the messages and themes of this commercial, the image of the Capital building is not incidental to this advertising. Please replace the image with one that is not of another national building or monument. Thank you.

Here's the offending image, on screen for just about one second:

Right, the offensive part of this image was that it depicted the Capitol Building, not that it called out one of ABC's biggest sources of dirty dirty cash... sure... And an ad about oil companies spending gobs of cash on lobbyists to block federal legislation has nothing to do with the Capitol Building... Good excuse ABC!

The We Campaign quickly sent out a letter to it's 1.6 million members saying:

I sent a letter asking ABC to reconsider their decision and put our ad on the air, but still we haven’t heard back more than a week later. I think they need to hear from all of us. Can you help? Please send a message to ABC and tell them to air the Repower America ad this Friday on 20/20. Just click here:

http://www.wecansolveit.org/ABC

We’re working to get 100,000 public comments to ABC before 20/20’s next airing.

Our Repower America ad has a clear and simple message — that massive spending by oil and coal companies on advertising is a key reason our nation hasn’t switched to clean and renewable sources for our energy.

The petition already has over 173,000 signatures and counting. So head on over to WeCanSolveIt.org and tell ABC that if they're going to take dirty oil company money, they'd better take some dirty environmentalist money as well, and run the darned ad!

Kate Sheppard at Grist has more muckraking on ABC's indefensible decision to block the Repower America ads...

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Take a Spin in the Cars of the Future

I just came across three videos from short 60 Minute segments that take a close look at (and inside) four electric and plug-in hybrid electric cars that'll make you anxious for the day you can leave the gas station behind. From GM's Chevy Volt plug-in and it's competitor from California, the Fisker Karma to the electric Tesla Roadster and the airplane-like, ultra-efficient Aptera, each of these cars is competing to be the car of the future. So take a spin...

• Aptera and Fisker Karma
• |
• CNET.co.uk videos

(two more below the fold...)

• Driving the Tesla Roadster
• |
• CNET.co.uk videos

• Chevy Volt
• |
• CNET.co.uk videos

There's more photos of the production version of the Chevy Volt here as well. The muscle-car of the early concept models originally unveiled in February 2007 has been replaced by a sleeker, more aerodynamic vehicle that's a higher-tech-looking version of the Honda Civic or Toyota Prius and Camry hybrids it'll likely compete with (lower drag = higher fuel efficiency, so that's no surprise). The new production version, slated to hit showrooms in model year 2011 was displayed last week at the 2008 Paris Auto Show.

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Invite the President Elect to the (Climate) Party in Poland!

No matter who wins the presidential election, they're going to have a tough job ahead of them. Digging out from eight years of President Bush's go-it-alone, damn-the-international-community, climate-delayer doctrine and restoring our standing as a member of the international community is a job you've got to a little bit crazy to sign up for. But either Barack Obama or John McCain are going to inherit that task on November 4th, and they don't have to wait until inauguration day to get started.

This December, the international community will come together again in Poland to work towards a plan to address the climate crisis. Both presidential candidates talk a big game on climate change, and they've got a big opportunity to walk the talk this December by attending the climate talks and re-engaging the United States in the quest to turn our climate crisis into an opportunity to ignite a new sustainable and prosperous global energy system. So let's make sure the next President-elect - whoever he may be - is invited to the climate party in Poland.

350.org just launched a new campaign to send Obama and McCain thousands of invitations to engage in the Poland climate talks in December. Take a second to send the next President-elect an invitation here.

Here's a video from 350.org explaining the invitation campaign:



So what are you waiting for: invite Obama and McCain to the party in Poland!

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Time for A Green Bailout? Van Jones Says Clean Energy Investment Can Solve Our Economic and Ecological Challenges

Van Jones is one timely man. With the economic crisis spurring a new search for ways to revitalize and rebuild our flagging economy, Van Jones, the founder and president of Green For All, is ready with answers: "a national commitment to green economic development as a way to address our environmental and economic crises at once."

That's the message of Van's new book, The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems (due out in bookstores October 7th), as well as the nationwide Green Jobs Now! day of action organized by Green For All last weekend. He couldn't have picked a better time for the book release and the day of action.

The $700 billion economic bailout plan passed last Friday by Congress may get Wall Street back to square one. But Americans on Main Street want more than a bailout. We want a real plan to move forward. We want a plan to create a more sustainable, prosperous and secure future for ourselves and our loved ones.

In a piece in Huffington Post last Friday (reprinted below), Van points out that investments in a 'green bailout plan' - a series of timely, strategic investments to ignite a new clean energy economy and restart our ailing economy - is our best hope, perhaps the only strategy that can move our troubled nation forward into a new era of shared prosperity. This quote from the intro to The Green Collar Economy sums it up well:

"[W]e cannot drill and burn our way out of our present economic and energy problems. We can, however, invent and invest our way out. Choosing to do so on a massive scale would have the practical benefit of cutting energy prices enough—and generating enough work—to pull the U.S. economy out of its present death spiral."

I look forward to cracking open Van's book this evening (I was lucky enough to get an advanced copy), and I encourage you to pick up a copy for yourselves (you can order a copy here). If there's one question that should be on everyone's mind right now, it's how do we get our economy back on track, kick our dirty energy addiction and ignite a new, clean energy economy. I'm sure Van has some answers.

I'll try to post a review of the book once I've read more of it. For now, here's Van's piece from HuffPost (reprinted with permission from Green for All):

"Now For A Green Bailout: Twice The Bang, Half The Bucks"
By Van Jones

Maybe the Wall Street bailout package is a good idea.

But the only thing I know for sure is this: even if we avert a total economic meltdown, we will still be in a recession. Millions of Americans still will be without jobs -- or in real fear of losing their job. Worse, we will still be dependent on dirty fuels like oil and coal, which are draining our monetary resources and cooking the planet.

The Earth and everyday people will still be suffering.

I wrote a new book to propose elegant solutions for our economic and environmental crises. The Green Collar Economy offers a green cure for the dilemmas we face and the financial messes we are in.

At this point, I am willing to concede that Wall Street and the big bankers need some propping up. But while we are at it, we should find a way to bail out the little people -- and the planet, too.

So how about a green bailout -- to help both? We already took an important step in that direction today. Perhaps the only thing in the whole bailout package that is inarguably good is the support for the U.S. clean energy sector.

After unconscionable delays, Congress finally gave a boost to our wind power industries and our solar power industries by extending the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) and the Production Tax Credit. The price tag was about $9 billion, but the cost was entirely offset, mostly by changes that were made to oil and gas tax rules.

What does America get for that no-net-cost shuffling of the tax code? Plenty. The 8-year extension of ITC alone will create 440,000 jobs. And $230 billion of private investment would be created in the solar and other industries, according to a recent report by Navigant Consulting.

Green Bailout: Half The Money, Twice The Impact

That's a good start. Let's keep going. An all-out "green bailout" could give America TWICE the bang ... for half the bucks.

We just found $700 billion. Let's find another $350 billion. That's half the price tag of the Wall Street rescue - which has no guarantee of success. But with $350 billion investment, we absolutely and positively could retrofit and repower America using clean, green energy - and create millions of new jobs, in the process.

A new report just released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors says that we can create over 4 million green jobs if we aggressively shift away from traditional fossil fuels toward alternative energy and a significant improvement in energy efficiency.

Another report just released by the Political Economy Research Institute and the Center for American Progress shows that the U.S. can create two million jobs over two years by investing $100 billion in a green economic recovery plan. The report also shows that this investment would create four times more jobs than spending the same amount of money within the oil industry.

Green For All and its partners are proposing a Clean Energy Corps that includes a revolving loan fund to finance the ambitious retrofitting of the nation's building stock. An investment of less than $3 billion per year would provide financing and can be expected to create close to 120,000 green jobs a year and 600,000 over five years, while also lowering home heating and electricity bills for homeowners and small businesses.

Clean Energy Corps: Retrofitting & Repowering America

The United States should have a Clean Energy Corps, combining community service with green-collar job training. Such a program could get hundreds of thousands of people ready to go to work, greening the nation's infrastructure.

The New Apollo Program is a comprehensive economic investment strategy developed by the Apollo Alliance to build America 's 21st century clean energy economy and dramatically cut energy bills for families and businesses. It estimates that the investment of $500 billion over the next 3 years and create more than 5 million high quality green-collar jobs.

It will accelerate the development of the nation's vast clean energy resources and move us toward energy security, climate stability, and economic prosperity. And it will transform America into the global leader of the new green economy.

A massive green economic stimulus package like this could even pay for ITSELF in energy savings and in tax dollars generated by new jobs and businesses.

As Thomas Friedman says, "We don't just need a bailout. We need a buildup." In my new book, The Green-Collar Economy, I spell out other green remedies for our economy.

Friedman: Not Just a Bailout, A Buildup

The bottom line is: we can't base a national economy on credit cards. But we can base it on solar panels, wind turbines, smart bio-fuels and massive, a program to weatherize every building and home in America.

Rather than giving platinum parachutes to those who wrecked the economy, let's throw a green lifeline to the ordinary people who want to rebuild it. We can't drill and burn our way out of our present mess. But we can invent and invest our way out.

Our present economy is based on consumption, debt and environmental destruction. The next U.S. economy should be based on production, smart savings and environmental restoration. You can't have a stable economy based on unregulated greed at the top. But you can have one based on unleashing green, at the bottom.

Millions of green jobs would be a Main Street solution to the Wall Street meltdown.

America's number one resource is not oil or mortgages. Our number one resource is our people.

And it is time to put our people back to work - retrofitting and re-powering America.

That's what my book is all about.

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