The Daily Green provides a good curtain-raiser on how the U.S. government's stepped-up involvement in alternative energy and clean technology initiatives will take shape. The environmental and energy blog notes that Hillary Clinton has proposed a $50 billion strategic energy fund and Barack Obama has a plan for a $10 billion private-public cleantech venture capital fund as part of a $150 billion overall investment.
Speaking to attendees of last week's IBF Cleantech Summit on investment in environmental and energy technology, John Podesta, former White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton and current head of the Center for American Progress think tank, remarked that in a sharp turn from the official White House position a few years ago, all three major presidential candidates now treat global warming as a central issue in their campaigns.
Ever the partisan, Podesta noted that attention to the issue runs to several pages of specific policy positions on both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's campaign Web sites, while garnering a paragraph on that of John McCain's site. He did note that the Arizona senator, the presumptive Republican nominee for the November presidential election, like his Democratic counterparts, has gone so far as to endorse a cap and trade program for reducing carbon emissions. And understanding his audience well, Podesta gently addressed the issue of how new government environmental and energy programs would work cooperatively with private enterprise to avoid heavy-handed government initiatives that would work at cross purposes to market-driven solutions.
The last thing that venture capitalists want is a lot of government investment in late-stage technology or systems of
subsidies that would skew the performance of private markets. Podesta acknowledged that when he was a congressman in the 1980s he largely heeded the advice of the investment community about limiting government involvement in the burgeoning information technology revolution, which was "enforce antitrust laws and otherwise stay out." But noting the role of regulation in the energy industry and the difficulty of coordinating a vast entrenched system of state and regional policies, he said government will have to be a key player in making clean technologies a vibrant economic force.
- Clifford CarlsenSee Feb. 14 post from The Daily GreenSee Jan. 16 post from Tech ConfidentialFor more see
Accountability-Central.com and
Environmental Economics
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