|
|
|---|
|
American Politics Journal Atrios Barry Crimmins Betty Bowers Buzzflash Consortium News Daily Howler Daily Kos Democatic Underground Disinfotainment Today Evil GOP Bastards Faux News Channel Greg Palast The Hollywood Liberal Internet Weekly Jesus General Joe Conason Josh Marshall Liberal Oasis Make Them Accountable Mark Morford Mike Malloy Political Humor - About.com Political Wire Randi Rhodes Rude Pundit Smirking Chimp Take Back the Media Whitehouse.org More Links |
Obama
talks to Big Dog (finally)
by Joe Conason
In October 2009, Clinton sent a
personal memo to Joe Biden, White House energy advisor Carol Browner
and Obama economic advisor Lawrence Summers, telling them that in his
opinion, the ratio might be as high
as 10-to-1, with $15 billion leveraging as much as $150 billion. Every
billion dollars invested in building efficiency
creates as many as 9,000 new jobs in construction, design and
manufacturing, which would swiftly add up to
a million or more Americans rescued from unemployment.
Privately, Clinton spoke with dozens of Democrats on Capitol Hill and
in the administration, trying to persuade
them that a green loan guarantee might not only create new jobs but
save theirs as well in the upcoming midterm
elections. Yet despite the president's avowed commitment to clean
energy and green jobs, the proposal made
little headway until this week -- even as economists have urged the
administration to unlock the enormous pool
of capital that banks are refusing to lend.
Those business executives present at Wednesday's White House event
weren't the Chamber of Commerce types
that have attacked the Democrats over healthcare, financial reform and
the federal deficit. (So the notion that
Obama called upon Clinton to "mediate" his differences with the
business community was pure media concoction.)
Instead, they represented companies that could participate directly in
the Clinton plan, including Bank of America
CEO Brian Moynihan, Honeywell CEO David M. Cote, Hannon Armstrong CEO
Jeffrey Eckel, Johnson Controls
president C. David Myers, and Ameresco founder and executive
vice-president Dave Anderson. Indeed,
Johnson Controls, which builds and installs energy control systems and
other efficiency equipment, is already
working with the Clinton Climate Initiative to make the Empire
State Building a model of green retrofitting.
For Democrats, this was not merely an occasion for Clinton nostalgia,
but a grim reminder of lost opportunities.
Had the president and his staff heeded their old adversary when he
started pushing the loan guarantee plan last year,
they might not need his help quite as badly as they do today.