US Environmental package - Picking up a Green Dream Team

The names of newly appointed officers for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Lisa Jackson), White House Council on Environmental Quality (Nancy Sutley) and Chief Energy and Environmental issues (Carol Browner) were voiced in mid December, to a considerable bolster of the overall Green-Policy credibility. The names have a strong scientific pedigree. Steve Chu, head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as new energy secretary, Harvard professor John Holdren as presidential science adviser and Oregon State marine biologist Jane Lubchenco as head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration complete the picture.

Ms. Browner would be particularly meaningful as it would assist Pres. Obama and “coordinate environmental, energy, climate and related matters for the federal government”. Source Wikipedia. The position is therefore above those federal agencies, a sort of Primum-inter-partes of the different interests at stake, hence the nickname “Climate Czar”.

The technical connotation of these officers does matter if the US wants to revive its ailing economy. A bold and responsible environmental policy, green-job incentives, Energy efficiency incentives seem to be part of a new “Project of a new American Century”, to be achieved this time via Power rationalization, Burden-sharing and Energy Independence (a campaign pamphlet reads “Barack Obama’s Plan to Make America a Global Energy Leader”). The issue had already been tried by a half-hearted Bush presidency in 2006, along with other measures as the “FreedomCar”, a hybrid vehicle program, in times when US and Australia were the odd-ones out in not ratifying the Kyoto protocol.

The present-day determination is alas not matched by economical figures. The numbers read, within a economic stimulus package of US $500 Blln, an estimated US $150 billion to green energy initiatives, modest when compared to the US $700 Blln Infrastructure package. The benefit of Obama´s America is also a golden opportunity for the World, as the economic crisis (the plunge of the oil-price has made solar and wind investments less interesting) has temporary hindered Economic incentives in traditional green economies as Germany and Spain. If Solar, Wind, Hydro are to be rescued as viable business new countries must start incentive programs. France already hypened its feed-in tariffs while India is afoot. Yet a US enter would be the enter of a heavyweight in terms of spending potential and would definitively help a snow-ball effect.