Alternative energy, which has moved higher on President-elect Barack Obama's daunting to-do list, might prove to be a helper for him to achieve the top-priority task: To get the economy back on track and people back to work.
Obama said five days before the election that he “will invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy to create five million new energy jobs over the next decade.” The industry not only has a relatively stronger performance in a bleak economy, but might create the most jobs for Americans in the next 10 years as well.
That explains why alternative energy has become the second most important thing on Obama's list, beating healthcare, tax-cut and the plan on retracting troops from Iraq.
An earlier plan was to put a cap on greenhouse gases requiring industries to buy credits from the government to emit CO2. That plan would have produced large government revenue and sent energy price rocket-high at the same time.
Obama's new plan on energy has switched to spend $150 billion in the next 10 years to develop alternative energy resources including wind, solar and biofuel. The focus has dramatically switched to stimulate the industry and create new jobs.
His third to fifth priorities, according to today's New York Times front-page story, are health care, tax restructuring, and education.
Q&A Part IV: Interview with Michael Rapoport
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Q6. Brief bio of Michael Rapoport:
A: 1999-present: Columnist writing the "In the Money" column for Dow Jones
Newswires, focusing on delving beneath the su...
14 years ago
2 comments:
In addition to domestic employment/economy, will US get other international benefits for taking the lead on global CO2 emission regulation? Europe has been working on it for a long time but I guess that nothing will really happen without the US.
That's a valid question. But I personally think without the main reason for domestic benefits, there is not enough motivation there. The US has not signed Kyoto Protocol yet.
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