This week, Obama signed a $26 billion bill that eases state budget crises and saves 300,000 teachers and policemen from imminent layoffs. The trade-off was DOE's renewable energy and transmission loan-guarantee program: it lost $3.5 billion.
The WH assured Nancy Pelosi that they intend to restore the funds, and claimed there is enough money to support current projects, but the enthusiasm for this program has been tempered from the start. The Office of Management and Budget has been slow fund it, and it does not seem to connect guaranteeing capital to job creation and economic recovery. Harry Reid describes this trend here in a letter to President Obama.
Defecit hawks' war on spending is a war on the middle class, and the DOE's clean energy loan guarantee program is a prime example of how the government can support small businesses and create jobs. Access to working capital is the spine that supports "green economy" and "green jobs", and the lack of it stops the show.
At present, much of the renewable energy sector is in a weak position with respect to Big Energy. This is for a number of reasons, and many are direct consequences of policies put in place by "conservative reforms" that characterize the previous administration. Most of these policies do not create middle class jobs: they tend to favor large corporations over smaller businesses in terms of tax policy, and their trends toward privatizing scientific research foster anti-competitive trends in the energy playing field.
The future of renewable energy depends on the policy decisions we make today. As we pull our economy out of the neoconservative ditch, we have to understand how vulnerable renewables are to our economic policy decisions. Clean energy infrastructure can play a pivotal role in bringing our country back to its economic potential, but we have understand how much it depends on financial policy decisions today.
It is easy to say "green jobs" and "green economy"; these are buzz phrases in political speech today -- words that are supposed to mean that we will support small businesses and create new jobs by building renewable energy infrastructure. It sounds like a great way to get people working, right? The problem is that small businesses across the board are in a holding pattern because of the financial sector: they do not have access to working capital, because banks will not loan money to them.
Without capital, small companies in the renewables sector cannot hire scientists and engineers needed for innovation, and all plans for implementation come to a screeching halt. The only companies that are able to set the narrative for our energy future then are the ones that already have working capital -- Big Energy, in particular. These are the companies that profit by limiting renewables infrastructure: they want to sell nuclear power in response to the carbon emissions crisis.
It is crucial that we make capital available to small businesses if we want to develop a renewables sector -- and it has to be a priority in our fight to create jobs and break our addiction to oil.
Action item: make noise, and make it soon.
Support Reid and Pelosi in their fight to fully fund the DOE's renewable energy and transmission loan-guarantee program. Write your congresspeople, the DOE, the OMB, and President Obama and remind them that the loan program is a proven job creator, and it will positively impact economic recovery.
Talk to your neighbors, and convince them that this loan program helps the middle class, and should be expanded. Explain why guaranteeing capital to small businesses in the renewables sector will create jobs, jobs, jobs.
Defecit hawks are limiting capital to small businesses; this kills middle class jobs and hurt the economy. On a related note, ask your congresspeople to support the Small Business Access to Capital Act that seeks to increase loan limits and provide for low interest refinancing for small businesses: S.1832 and HR 4302.
And please rec the BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership.
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(Tayo Fatunla, Freelance Cartoonist for Cagle Cartoons (West Africa), Buy this cartoon)
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