60 Organizations Send Principles for Green & Equitable Stimulus to Transition Team
by David Sassoon - Dec 11th, 2008
The undersigned organizations sent the following Principles for a Green & Equitable Stimulus and Recovery to President-elect Obama's transition team today.
As you draft and debate proposals to stimulate the American economy, we strongly urge you to make the recovery package as green and as equitable as possible. We propose these principles as benchmarks against which all stimulus proposals – indeed, all energy-related proposals coming out of the new administration and Congress – should be measured.
The stimulus must:
- Maximize investments in the transition to a green, inclusive economy.
- Focus on fixing, improving efficiency, and lowering energy costs for our existing infrastructure – our buildings, roads and bridges, transmission grid, public transit systems, and manufacturing plants – rather than on new development.
- Promote high quality, family-supporting jobs here at home.
- Provide opportunities for under-served communities to access these high quality jobs, through investments in training programs and partnerships that promote career ladders and “pathways out of poverty.”
- Drive funding to states, cities, tribes and communities, and allow them some freedom to decide where and how they invest in their own economies.
We have in this time of crisis an historic opportunity to incorporate principles of sustainability, fairness, and equity directly into programs to grow our national economy. And we have an opportunity to make fundamental choices about the kind of economy we want to create for the 21st century. We can build a green economy that lifts all boats and puts America on a path to true prosperity, but only if we start now by demonstrating the political will to do so at this critical juncture.
It was signed by the following organizations, not your usual bedfellows.
1Sky
Alliance for Climate Protection
Apollo Alliance
Campus Progress
Center for American Progress Action
Fund
Center for Neighborhood Technology
Center for State Innovation
Center on Wisconsin Strategy
Ceres
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin
Clean Water Action
Clean Wisconsin
Climate Crisis Coalition
Climate Solutions
Coalition on Human Needs
Color of Change
Common Cause
Deep South Center for Environmental
Justice at Dillard University
Democracia USA
Earth Ministry
EcoAmerica
Ecology Center
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Energize America
Energy Action Coalition
Environmental Justice and Climate Change
Initiative
Environmental and Energy Study Institute
Fresh Energy
Future Majority
Global Exchange
Green For All
Greenpeace USA
Hip Hop Caucus
Illinois Environmental Council
Interfaith Power and Light
Iowa Environmental Council
IowaGlobalWarming.Org
Kyoto USA
League of Young Voters Education Fund
Michigan Energy Alternatives Project
Michigan Land Use Institute
Minnesota Center for Environmental
Advocacy
MoveOn.org Political Action
National Hispanic Environmental Council
NYC Apollo Alliance
Oil Change International
PolicyLink
Policy Matters Ohio
Progressive Leadership Alliance of
Nevada
Rainforest Action Network
Restoring Eden
Rock the Vote
Sierra Club
Sierra Club, Cascade Chapter
Sierra Student Coalition
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
Urban Agenda
Valley Watch, Inc
Windustry
Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters
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This is an impressive list -
This is an impressive list - is there any idea how many people these organizations represent in total? Also, some effort should be made to enlist the 1.3M members of the Pickens Plan, which probably represents an entirely new constituency (many of whom live in the states of the likely opposition in Congress). The same can be said for some of the Peak Oil groups. The more Americans of all flavors that sign up, the bigger the groundswell and the harder the movement will be to marginalize or ignore.
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