The country got a glimpse of the coming battle over the proposed carbon cap and trade system (a carbon tax would be better) during Secretary Tim Geithner’s testimony to the Senate Finance Committee yesterday .

Senator Grassley (R, Iowa) called the cap and trade system a “tax” and asked if President Obama is breaking his promise to not raise taxes on people making less than $200,000?

Sec. Geithner did a great job of responding directly to the question and explaining why it is important to address climate change.

I applaud the Secretary’s forthright answers and especially his statement that the impact of this system will depend on individual behavior.  The country has been waiting for leaders to tell us the truth about the challenges we face.

Cutting taxes while fighting wars on hidden budgets (full of borrowed money) sounded great - but crushed our economy.  We need leaders willing to tell us things we may not want to hear - like we need to pay our own way.

Which why, even though I would prefer a direct carbon tax, I support the Obama Administration attempt to change our energy habits. Geithner said it well, “we need incentives to change the way we use energy.”  Most Americans want to get off oil and know that it won’t be easy.  We can handle cost increases if  we have a leader who keeps us focused on the endgame (and our sacrifices result in a actual change.)

The is refreshing to have an Administration that is not trying to snow us with easy answers that don’t really address the problem.  Obama is taking the high road and providing vision for how we build a new energy economy.

The challenges is that his well-funded opponents get to  yell “raising taxes”, “hurting the middle class” and “breaking promises.” Their sound bites will work better on TV and they will come from both Republicans and Democrats.

The President will need our help responding to the gas, coal and oil spokesman. One of the things we can do is stomp on the false populism.

Senator Grassley wielded populism yesterday, saying cap and trade will hurt working families and the unemployed.  Since when has he fought for the middle and working classes?

The AFL-CIO says he has voted with labor only 14% of the time and MiddleClass.org says scores him only slightly higher at 20%.  Senator Grassley is working for the richest and most powerful forces of status quo.  If he is really worried about coal companies, then our job is to make him say so.  He doesn’t get to hide behind us.

The contrast between the Administration and the Senate could not be clearer.  Sec. Geithner told us the hard truths while the Senator used our struggles to protect the lining of his friends pocketbooks.

Branding a city

Brian Lehrer had a fascinating piece today on how the public sector took on a private sector strategy to save New York during the 1970’s. The city invested in Branding. Faced with a failing economy, rising crimes rates and a bad reputation New York officials created the iconic campaign “I Love NY”.

My main takeaway from the piece was the comment Miriam Greenberg made about branding. She said that branding is a combination of both marketing and material, that you need more than just a great message. I completely agree.

There’s a lot of discussion about what companies and governments should invest in during these times. There’s healthcare, or education, or infrastructure. If anyone said branding, I bet the suggestion was widely dismissed.  But if you take Ms. Greenberg’s use of the term, its really not such a bad idea.  Branding helps people identify with products and if anything needs support of the people right now, its the economy. Its our cities and local businesses.  Its going to be the new products.

So for every project that we are launching, stimulus or not, lets make sure we put a solid branding effort into it too.

A lesson for the public and private sector alike.

Quick - Post
Fast Company’s piece on Marine Energy is a good introduction to an area that’s often overlooked in our search for renewable energy.

Check it out here http://tinyurl.com/b9v4y4

The rules for energy are changing. The past few years have highlighted how our natural resources are growing scarce and, despite recent investments, infrastructure to produce and deliver energy remains insufficient. Addressing either issue has significant financial and environmental costs. It’s no surprise then that there’s been an increasing amount of attention in the media and in boardrooms to “green” solutions.

Green energy capabilities can grow to meet our national needs but it will take more than technology to get it done.  A sustainable energy reality can be built through a novel application of smart technology investments combined with innovative partnerships across the public/private divide. Communities and individuals working with government and business can move beyond the role of passive consumers of energy, and become active participants engaged in sustainable and affordable practices at the local level.

The Fourth Arts Block’s (FAB) Distributed Photovoltaic Generation (DPG) project is a perfect example of this new process. It allows FAB members and their neighbors to pool their resources for energy production, and to monitor their energy use to help shape their choices and promote community wide conservation.

The significance of this project extends beyond empowering a neighborhood to be energy self-sufficient. The 20 contiguous rooftops that make up the FAB DPG project will be a testing ground for solar technologies, (at least) two new business models for energy consumption based on production and conservation. The project will also experiment in new forms of public/private partnership. The on-going documentation will capture the numerous lessons learned and make them available to help other communities achieve energy independence through common effort.

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The US House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee passed bill HR 6049, which will extend tax breaks for wind, solar, biofeul and other alternative energy producers. The rational for the bill could not be plainer, these breaks help make alternative energy competitive and therefore attractive to investors.

Nonetheless, the struggle to pass the bill has been long and arduous.  Congress must pay for any incentives were previously tied to traditional energy incentives in oil and gas.  Those requirement has been removed creating enough movement amongst coal and oil states to pass the bill.

Combined the NREL report released today the future of alternative energy in the US took a small step forward today.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced today that they will invest $24 million in developing new solar technologies. While the news is welcome, the figure is hardly enough to significantly alter the landscape of solar technology.

The overall research and development budget for 2008 is $137 billion with $1.46 billion dedicated to energy. The 24 million hardly represents a major investment in our solar future.   The time to  invest in the  our future is now.   The DOE’s action today  is a welcome first step  on  a long road.