Rebuild the Dream (29 page)

Libertarians should appreciate the brash spirit of the clean energy rebels. Shouldn't every American have the right and the liberty to power her own home, as she sees fit? Why should Americans be forced to live forever as energy serfs—consumers of energy, rather than producers of energy? Why should the power companies have a monopoly over the production and distribution of energy in this country? Why should Americans be dictated to by utility companies that tell us twelve times a year exactly how much money we are going to give them (and how many asthma inhalers we're going to have in our own communities) for the privilege of using their power? Shouldn't members of every American community have the right and the liberty to band together; put solar panels on their own roofs and wind turbines on their own property; and then compete on a national grid with anybody else that wants to produce energy? Clean energy advocates like free markets. We like them so much, we would actually like to see a free market in our energy sector. We don't have one now.

Farmers should love the clean energy economy because it would let America's struggling, rural communities earn three additional paychecks. Number one, each wind turbine placed on the land—which could still be farmed or otherwise used—could produce enough energy to bring in $10,000 to $20,000 per year.
Number two, once the United States has a functioning carbon market, a farmer who improves her soil by using it to capture CO
₂
could get paid for removing that greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. Number three, farmers could earn money growing an energy crop—not corn or another food crop—but some advanced, quick-turnaround biofuel crop such as jatropha, or even algae.

Ranchers should like clean energy, too. America might manufacture wind turbines, smart batteries, and solar panels in some blue states, but where are we going to deploy them? We are unlikely to put any big wind farms in the middle of Manhattan. The vast majority of green energy solutions will be deployed in red states and in rural America; that is where we will build the big solar arrays and acres of wind turbines. Green energy solutions are stereotyped as being “hippie power” for people in Berkeley, California. But it makes more sense to see renewable energy as cowboy power, rancher power, and farmer power.

Homeowners and commercial property owners should be thrilled about the clean energy agenda. The cleanest and cheapest watt of energy is the one that is never used. Hundreds of thousands of Americans could be employed in “energy efficiency” jobs, refitting buildings to waste less energy and water. Such workers put in clean, nontoxic insulation; replace old boilers and furnaces; install better windows and doors, cutting home energy bills by 30 percent or more. If decision makers finance the energy efficiency program the right way, the building owner would not pay an extra penny for all those services. The money would come out of the savings from her energy bill once a month; eventually the program would pay
for itself through savings. Properly structured and financed, the same dollar bill would cut unemployment, energy bills, pollution, and asthma—in a program that paid for itself. These are the kinds of programs that can be created through public-private partnerships that could put people to work right now. Bill Clinton says in his book
Back to Work
that a million people could be employed in the energy efficiency field. The initial financing could come from these banks that are sitting right now on a couple trillion dollars of uncommitted assets. Those bankers got government bailouts to keep them in their jobs; it's time for them to help create some jobs for the rest of America.

Young people and the parents of unemployed youth should be thrilled about green and clean energy jobs, especially in struggling communities. Idle youth could be trained to put up solar panels, refit homes, tend community gardens, plant trees, and strengthen communities. Some say we cannot afford to train youth and place them in green industries. But if members of this abandoned generation start engaging in desperate and foolish acts, society will pay a potentially heavier price. Regardless, we are already paying a tremendous opportunity cost by letting youth unemployment rates climb to 45 percent or more; for African American teens in urban areas, the numbers are staggering. We don't know how many Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Henry Fords, and Oprah Winfreys are being left out of the economy. Perhaps we should reallocate the subsidies we give the oil industry to employ them instead. Our most precious resource is not our petroleum; it is our people.

As we think about a new economy, perhaps we can begin to apply some new math—and begin to count what really counts. The Earth counts; our kids count; the future counts. Where economic and energy policy meet, we should calculate not only what we spend, but we should also calculate what we save. And we should
consider the payoffs from the investments we make in human and natural capital.

The transition to a cleaner, greener economy will be neither cheap nor easy. One way to handle the expense is to make sure that greenhouse gas polluters pay some of the tab for the transition. In this scenario, the United States just needs to follow a simple principle: nobody in America should be allowed to pollute for free. Nobody. Not a strolling citizen who might be tempted to litter; not a small business person who might want to illegally dump her trash; and not the biggest polluters on Earth, who belch mega-tons of greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere and don't pay a cent for the privilege.

Society can put a price on carbon pollution in one of two ways: through a tax on carbon, or with a cap-and-trade system. With the tax approach, the government would determine the extra price on carbon. It then would let the market sort out the amount of carbon that industry ultimately produces. With emissions trading, the government would determine the allowable amount of carbon pollution. It then would let the market figure out the price. These two ideas are basically flip sides of the same solution, with the government playing the opposite role in each. The money generated could go toward supporting the transition.

This is not pie in the sky; in the first and only mandatory carbon emissions trading scheme in America, it is already working brilliantly. A new report, “The Economic Impacts of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative on Ten Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States,” quantifies the economic benefits from the implementation of a ten-state regional greenhouse gas initiative called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

To quote the report, key findings include:

• The regional economy gains more than $1.6 billion in economic value added (reflecting the difference between total revenues in the overall economy, less the cost to produce goods and services).

• Customers save nearly $1.1 billion on electricity bills, and an additional $174 million on natural gas and heating oil bills, for a total of $1.3 billion in savings over the next decade through installation of energy efficiency measures using funding from RGGI auction proceeds to date.

• Sixteen thousand jobs are created region-wide.

• Reduced demand for fossil fuels keeps more than $765 million in the local economy.

• Power plant owners experience $1.6 billion in lower revenue over time, although, overall, they had higher revenues than costs as a result of RGGI during the 2009–2011 period.

Massachusetts benefited most, creating thirty-eight hundred jobs and nearly $500 million in economic activity between 2008 and 2011, because it used the bulk of its money to help fund its aggressive energy-efficiency agenda. A similar program at national
scale would enable hundreds of thousands of Americans to go to work, create or grow hundreds of private firms, and put the United States in a position to compete with China (which is now eating our lunch using our technology).

If Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats continue to oppose cap-and-trade, there are other ways to stimulate green growth. The federal government could simply mandate that our utilities buy more clean energy; this policy—called a Renewable Energy Standard—would create an instant market for entrepreneurial purveyors of advanced batteries, smart grid technologies, and clean energy. Alternatively, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could directly regulate carbon polluters under the Clean Air Act, as the Supreme Court says is lawful; Democrats would have to maintain a filibuster to keep the Clean Air Act from immediately being amended. If the EPA were to exercise this authority, clean energy entrepreneurs would have a guaranteed market.

There is no rational reason that any of these solutions could not be implemented on a bipartisan basis. As it is, too many of our clean and green industries are teetering on the brink. The Chinese government is pumping money into its solar companies to flood the world market with cheap solar panels; once it achieves a monopoly, it will jack the prices back up. Meanwhile, the U.S. government won't even commit to maintain the modest subsides it has made available to domestic clean energy producers. At a time when we need jobs, our government is throwing away the industries of tomorrow.

It is important to remember that the green sector of America's economy—often associated with expensive eco-products such home solar systems, organic food, and hybrid cars—is no longer just for affluent people who are willing to spend more money. It is also for middle-class, working-class, and low-income people who want to earn more money and save more money.

With the right policies in the Head Space, the 99% movement can help rebuild the middle class; fight pollution and poverty at the same time; simultaneously beat global warming and the global recession; and create an inclusive, green economy that Dr. King would have been proud of.

WE MUST REJECT THE IDEA
that people who love America and who respect the free market are just supposed to sit back and give the country over to the global corporations. We cannot accept the idea that the American people can do nothing but suffer until eventually an international company decides that it wants to create a job somewhere—and then hope it is in America. We need Uncle Sam to do more than just cross his fingers and wait for the global market to magically fix everything for us. We must support the idea that there is something very American about Americans working together with America's government to solve America's problems.

People who actually love the country—and who understand something about economics besides a slogan—need to speak out. Having a blind, religious faith in markets has nothing to do with the kind of economic thinking and investment strategy that built America's middle class. That is the kind of thinking that is actually destroying the middle class in the United States and killing the American Dream.

F
ROM THE MOMENT OF ITS BIRTH
, the 99% movement has owned the Outside Game. Those who pitched tents in downtown Manhattan were the ultimate outsiders, with no Washington lobbying operation, no pollsters, and no electoral game plan. They were engaged in a purely grassroots effort to impact the public discussion—and they succeeded beyond all but their wildest ambitions.

So far, so good. But as hard as grassroots movements are to start, they can be even harder to maintain. The launch requires a near miracle: jumping over the barriers to press coverage erected by a cynical media, and then capturing the imagination of a somnolent or discouraged public. Keeping the momentum going and avoiding an early flameout can be equally tough. Newborn grassroots movements face a “grow, deepen, or die” challenge; if they fail to meet it, they risk disappearing as quickly as they emerged.

It is especially important that the Occupy-inspired movement of the 99% continue to experiment, evolve, and innovate—to find
ways to engage a continually growing cross-section of people. The initial set of tactics associated with Occupy centered on the twenty-four-hour encampments, which were usually set up in defiance of local, anticamping ordinances. Both confrontational and controversial, the tent cities were essential for building community among the highly dedicated, as well as grabbing the attention of the public. But in many cities, this tactic also created a context for an adversarial relationship with city officials and law enforcement agencies. Some of the resulting clashes and conflicts were alarming and a turn-off, even for those who shared the protesters' underlying concerns about the economy.