http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/us/politics/29obama.html?_r=1&hp
http://www.rules.house.gov/111/LegText/111_hr1_text.pdf
Wednesday January 28, 2009 the House approved President Obama’s stimulus package without a single Republican vote. The economic recovery plan, as Obama prefers to reference it, totals some $819 billon in new spending and relief via tax cuts. However of that total figure, funding for the research and development of energy efficiency and renewable energy only makes up roughly 2% of the package. After you account for the amounts designated to overhead and administration of these funds, the actual research dollars make up an even smaller percentage of the recovery plan. This figure seems surprisingly scant for a presidential candidate who positioned himself as an advocate of alternative energy and sympathetic to concerns about global warming.
The stimulus package is even less favorable when viewed through the prism of direct environment spending. The recovery plan includes notably fewer dollars for environmental projects than even the meager funding set aside for energy research. Conversely, this bill calls for nearly $30 billion in funding for highways. This move maintains a long legacy of pro automobile oriented policy and continues American reliance on automobile centric travel. This is unfortunate as the U.S. is responsible for producing nearly 50% of the greenhouse gases emitted by vehicles worldwide.
Instead Obama could have supported diverting those highway dollars to bolster the $6 billion available for mass transit improvements. While on the surface $6 billion may appear a large figure, it needs to be put into context. It cost $1.4 billion to build the new 20 mile light rail line in the Phoenix metro area. On a national scale $6 billion won’t be sufficient to make a significant move towards meaningful mass transit. Perhaps instead of being content to produce a stimulus package that is approximately 1/3 tax cuts as a concession to Republicans, more funds could be spent on transit. Ultimately, this could facilitate a reduction in vehicle miles and in turn dramatically lower greenhouse gas emissions.
In summation the Obama economic recovery plan reminds me of Mark Dowie’s critique of environmental leaders. The environment “would be in far better condition had leaders been bolder…less compromising; and less gentlemanly in the day to day dealings with adversaries.” (Kraft, M. and Vig, N. (2006).Environmental Policy: New Directions for the Twenty-First Century, Sixth Edition. Washington, D.C.:CQ Press) After all the bill didn’t achieve even one Republican vote in the House.
