WASHINGTON — Barack Obama portrays his stimulus plan as a quick jolt for the ailing economy and a "down payment" on his priorities as president. But those goals appear to be colliding in at least one key area: energy independence.
The stimulus package increasingly appears unlikely to include major investments in "green infrastructure" -- the wires and rails that could deliver renewable energy to Americans' homes and help end the nation's addiction to oil -- according to alternative-energy advocates who are discussing the plans with the Obama transition team.
It's a timing issue. The blueprints and, in many cases, the authority don't exist to lay miles of high-speed rail lines or to build a sprawling web of power lines to create a truly national electric grid.
"Before you spend billions of dollars on new lines, you have to spend millions of dollars on design work," said Michael Moynihan, the green project director of the liberal think tank NDN in Washington, who has worked extensively on green infrastructure and the stimulus. "Nobody had been thinking about this much money [becoming available]. So the planning just has not been done."
Obama spokeswoman Amy Brundage stressed the president-elect's commitment to green infrastructure earlier this week but did not disclose details.
"President-elect Obama is committed to making sure we are moving forward with smart-grid projects and mass transit initiatives that will spur long-term growth in our economy," she said. Smart-grid technology includes, for example, metering systems that help consumers use less energy.
"Clean energy and infrastructure are top priorities in an American Recovery and Reinvestment plan," Brundage said, "and President-elect Obama's team is working to make these essential investments to create jobs and help put our economy back on track."
The U.S. now uses a series of regional power grids that make it impossible for a wind farm in Texas to send electricity to a skyscraper in New York. Advocates say that could change under a vastly expanded national grid, opening markets for wind, solar and other energy alternatives.
Obama has pledged to invest in green infrastructure as part of his push to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. At a Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, Obama's Energy secretary nominee, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu, said a nationwide grid would be "in the national interest" and said the country needed a "new way of doing business" to get it built quickly.
