Subject: RE: Energy Econ Development
From: "Carol Browner" <[email-masked]>
To: "Sarah Wartell" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked], "Bracken Hendricks" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:24:07 -0500

Sarah -- thanks I appreciate the thoughts.  Perhaps we could talk at your convenience.  Best, Carol

-----Original Message-----
From: Sarah Wartell [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Tue 12/30/2008 1:17 PM
To: Carol Browner; [email-masked]'
Cc: [email-masked]'; Bracken Hendricks
Subject: Energy Econ Development 
 
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 single-minded 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. 

Sarah Rosen Wartell

Executive Vice President 

Center for American Progress

1333 H Street, NW 

Washington, DC 20005

(202) 682-1611 (main)

(202) 741-6366 (direct)

[email-masked]