Boston GreenScene's Policy Corner: The Green Bank

by Dan Burgess, Boston GreenScene's Policy Corner Commentator

As the national health care debate in the United States begins to come to a legislative end, the next issue to take center stage will be close to this website's heart: climate change and the environment.

We are truly at a pivotal moment. In the next year, for the first time in almost a decade, our country will seriously consider national legislation and international treaties that have the potential to curb the industrial damage we are causing our earth. As we have seen through the health care discussion, this discourse will be heated, and there will be an astounding amount of misinformation promulgated by those special interests that stand to lose money through successful legislation. If you think the health care lobbyists and conservative activists were fierce, you haven’t seen anything yet.

The industries that will be lining up against environmental protection and regulation include oil and gas, coal, manufacturing, and political interests like those who were shouting ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ in the most recent Presidential election. This combination of interests will dwarf those that were against United States health care legislation in both money and vitriol.

In order to help inform, and combat the misleading information that is bound to bog down this compelling debate, I’ll attempt to highlight a green policy initiative or idea every week.

This week’s policy proposal to highlight is that of a Green Bank. First introduced by John D. Podesta and Karen Kornbluh earlier this year through the Center for American Progress, a public Green Bank would provide needed investment dollars specifically to the clean energy industry.

Podesta and Kornbluh believe a Green Bank could potentially:

“...lead to the steady and reliable creation of clean-energy jobs and would be a crucialelement of the transition to a clean-energy economy. Working in partnership with the private sector, a well constructed, public Green Bank would open credit markets and motivate businesses to invest again. It would enable clean-energy technologies—in such areas as wind, solar, geothermal, advanced biomass, and energy efficiency—to be deployed on a large scale and become commercially viable at current electricity costs.”

While the United States federal government does provide loans and tax breaks that help to spur green investment, these incentives have been allowed to run out in the past and the clean-energy industry does not find the incentives reliable. The European Union, the World Bank, and the European Investment Fund already have investment programs that are far more advanced than United States policy. Additionally, Podesta and Kornbluh soberly point out that countries in Asia are spending a much higher portion of their Gross Domestic Product on clean technology investment:

“In Asia, China is investing $220 billion of its economic stimulus package in green programs—over 3 percent of its total gross domestic product of $4.4 trillion. South Korea is investing 1.2 percent of its total GDP, or about $30 billion, into new green strategies to drive their own economic recovery. Meanwhile, the United States is investing less than one half of 1 percent of our GDP on clean-energy stimulus programs.”

The creation of a public Green Bank would provide much needed investment funds and would send a strong signal to business leaders and entrepreneurs that the U.S. is serious about clean technology investment. Personally, I would like to see this public bank be extended to help small to midsized farms (what’s more green that freshly grown ag-products?). But even without this addition, the creation of a Green Bank would be sensical policy and should be considered by Congress.