Download Memo to Carol Browner V5 final

DATE:
December 30, 2008
TO:
Carol Browner, Incoming Assistant to the President for Energy and
Climate Change
FROM:
Sarah Rosen Wartell, Acting CEO of the Center for American Progress
and Executive Vice President
Bracken Hendricks, Senior Fellow
RE:
Economic Development in the National Energy Council
Congratulations Carol on your new post. We cannot imagine anyone better suited to this
essential task. We are so proud and excited. On behalf of all of our colleagues at
American Progress, we wish you great success. We also thank you for your leadership
on CAP’s Board and your commitment to CAP during the institution’s formative period.
While we will miss you there, we look forward to working with you in your new role.
We write here to share an observation that might inform how you assemble the team that
works with you. To be clear, we are not arguing for any particular candidates. We
simply want to urge that you keep the skills and interests we suggest in mind as you build
your team. We stand ready to work with whomever you select, but we believe our
capacity to advance the shared agenda will be enhanced if we can interact with and you
bring on board “economic development” staff with a focus on (and expertise in) the
housing and community development, workforce, and infrastructure programs that will
be needed to coordinate the retrofitting and reconstruction of our built environment,
create green jobs, and move the foundations of our economy towards a low-carbon
future.
We know you share our conviction that the task at hand is not simply environmental in
nature, but involves a dramatic restructuring of the economy. You know well that
buildings and housing represents 40 percent of our energy use and a comparable portion
of global warming emissions. As a result, we need a national strategy to retrofit our
existing building stock. With an aging workforce in the energy sector and proposals for a
fivefold increase in building retrofits, we also need a strategy to address workforce
development. And with a rising urgency to rebuild our transportation and electrical grid
infrastructure to support low carbon energy, we need to confront global warming as both
urban and infrastructure policy. Finally, we know you believe that the nation’s green
economic agenda can ensure that energy solutions lift all boats—especially those of the
most marginalized communities—and invest in strong urban fabrics and quality jobs. A
positive program of investing in clean energy can offer pathways out of poverty, skills
training, and career ladders in high-paying trades and the industries of the future -- all
desperately needed in our crippled economy.
We write because our prior and recent experiences suggest that it will require a singleminded and dedicated staff at the White House focused on this economic transformation
to have a shot at success. As you may know, each of us served in both cabinet agency
and White House staff roles in the past. We are keenly aware of how the challenges and
day to day realities of agency offices make it difficult to wake up “thinking green.” We
are greatly excited about the talented cabinet that President-elect Obama has assembled
and we expect similarly progressive and committed subcabinet picks. We know that
virtually all of them share your interest in green transformation. But the enormity of the
financial, policy, and management challenges and the great pressures of extant
constituencies at the key agencies will make it difficult for them to pursue the energy
transformation agenda with the intensity required.
Let us use HUD as one example. CAP recently hosted a meeting of advocates and
experts on how to speed energy efficiency changes for the HUD-assisted and insured
housing stock. The Secretary-designate is a friend, who is an expert in policy and shares
our commitment to this goal. Yet we all were deeply chastened as we considered the
agency’s limitations, disfunction, and challenges. Even new dedicated political staff with
energy transformation as their focus will find this daunting. They will need strong
support and constant pressure from the White House to achieve the progress required.
Of course, you need some on your team seeped in the global climate change policy,
emissions trading systems, and the science and technology of climate change, the
environment, and energy. However, for this economic development transformation
White House staff also must be expert. To be successful, you cannot merely coordinate
agency efforts into a larger strategy or even demand policy responsiveness to the
President’s goals. Your team must initiate and drive policy development. While the
President’s commitment to this project is the most important ingredient, the job also
requires Energy Council staff familiar with the capacities of the Departments of Housing
and Urban Development, Energy, Labor, Transportation, Education, EPA and Interior –
all of whom have relevant programs in their existing portfolios. Ideally too they know
finance and have experience in shaping public/private partnership, as the government is
leader and catalyst but the change must be society-wide. Such a staff would provide a
point of entry and engagement for the mayors, community-based organizations, labor,
civil rights groups, regulators, and other stakeholders involved with housing, urban, and
infrastructure, and workforce issues, currently looking for ways to engage with the
discussions around energy, climate and jobs.
Have no doubt that American Progress stands ready to engage, support, and work closely
with each and every member of your team. We are very excited about the prospects for
change and look forward to doing all that we can from outside government to provide
ideas, analysis, and advocacy. Please do not hesitate to tell us how we can help.
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