Launching a Clean Infrastructure Investment Agenda

Last week, NDN Fellow and Green Project Director Michael Moynihan released an essay calling for an investment in new, clean infrastructure. Clean infrastructure investment, which includes electricity grid modernization, public transportation, renewable energy and efficiency, and a variety of other ideas, is crucial in both ensuring near-term economic growth and long-term prosperity, as we create a low-carbon economy.

Saturday in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman issued a similar call, arguing to "Green the Bailout."

The point is, we don’t just need a bailout. We need a buildup. We need to get back to making stuff, based on real engineering not just financial engineering. We need to get back to a world where people are able to realize the American Dream — a house with a yard — because they have built something with their hands, not because they got a "liar loan" from an underregulated bank with no money down and nothing to pay for two years. The American Dream is an aspiration, not an entitlement.
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Indeed, when this bailout is over, we need the next president — this one is wasted — to launch an E.T., energy technology, revolution with the same urgency as this bailout. Otherwise, all we will have done is bought ourselves a respite, but not a future. The exciting thing about the energy technology revolution is that it spans the whole economy — from green-collar construction jobs to high-tech solar panel designing jobs. It could lift so many boats.

A national agenda focused on investing in new, clean infrastructure has the potential to begin to pull America out of the current economic downturn, enhance energy security, confront climate change, and ensure future prosperity through the creation of dynamic new 21st century, low-carbon economy. Stay tuned to the Green Project’s work on clean infrastructure moving forward.