March 11, 2026

Author: Keith Schneider

Recovery Bill is Breakthrough on Clean Energy, Good Jobs

by Keith Schneider1

In signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act today President Barack Obama ensured that $113.5 billion will be spent over the next two years on developing clean fuels, modernizing rail transit, pursuing energy efficiency, developing high-mileage electric vehicles, and scaling up electrical generating stations powered by the wind, sun, and heat of the earth. The magnitude of the clean energy investment – consistent with the sums spent to launch the Interstate Highway System in the …

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Carol Browner Needs Focus on The Stimulus

by Keith Schneider0

This afternoon Carol Browner appeared on the CNN Situation Room where she didn’t do nearly as good a job answering questions about clean energy and the stimulius as the President and the nation need her to. The stimulus contains more than $115 billion dollars in investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy development, transit, fit-it-first road repair, research and development, experimental projects on carbon sequestration, and manufacturing for next generation vehicles. The scale and comprehensive nature …

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“Building Sprawl Forever, Those Days Are Over,” Obama Declares

by Keith Schneider0

Today in Ft. Myers, Florida, President Barack Obama addressed what is arguably the central source of America’s energy crisis, climate crisis, and jobs crisis. And that is the way we’ve civilized ourselves. Or to put it more directly, the design of our spread out, energy-wasting, time-consuming, land-deteriorating, sprawling patterns of development. As Larry the Cable Guy would say, we could go on about this all day. A national smart growth movement that grew up in …

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Clean Energy Is Foundation of Proposed Stimulus

by Keith Schneider1

Even in this era of costly crisis and even more expensive rescue, $112.9 billion is still a lot of money. That sum is what Congressional leaders and President-elect Barack Obama propose to spend over the next two years to build new transit lines, weatherize buildings, manufacture clean next-generation vehicles, develop wind and solar power, make state and federal vehicle fleets more energy efficient, and create new green-collar jobs. The details of the proposed stimulus package, …

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Fast Track For National Rail Transit

by Keith Schneider0

MINNEAPOLIS – Technically speaking “light rail transit” encompasses an urban rail line capable of carrying 2,000 to 20,000 passengers an hour at speeds reaching 70 miles per hour. “Heavy rail” describes longer, faster commuter and inter-city trains. The reality of light and heavy rail in this city of 400,000, and in 29 other cities across the United States that have built light rail, street car, and commuter rail systems since 1984, is much more encompassing …

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Radical Republican Economics: The End

by Keith Schneider1

Thank God, it’s over. The radical right is retreating back to the dank, dark, fetid corner from which it sprang 30 years ago. The wreckage they’ve wrought has left a nation unable to govern, an economy that will be wobbly for years, a president drained of credibility, and a capable nation doubting its own creativity and strength. But if there’s one enduring value to the meltdown in leadership in Washington and the financial markets in …

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McCain Blinks on Debating, The Bailout, WMD, And Our Responsibility

by Keith Schneider1

Listen up kids. This stuff just doesn’t happen but once in a lifetime.  Century-old billion dollar financial institutions crumbling in a matter of days. Nearly $100 billion bailouts decided in closed session by a tiny group of government bankers. An American political party tossing out the central tenets of the free-market, deregulatory, anti-tax, anti-government ideology that fostered its political ascendancy for nearly 30 years and is now backing a $700 billion taxpayer-financed government takeover of …

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Energy From Apollo Alliance

by Keith Schneider0

Congress this week took up legislation to decide America’s energy future.  The question in Washington is the same as it is in the presidential campaign – “drill baby drill” or a policy that promotes real solutions, a plan for a reasoned future that invests in clean energy and good jobs. The Apollo Alliance is pushing back against drilling proposals that won’t solve our energy crisis and promoting a much better one that will, The New …

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With Right Grass, Biofuels Make Sense

by Keith Schneider2

“The beauty of switchgrass is how hearty it is and how fast it grows,” said Dr. Suleiman Bughrara, a plant breeder at Michigan State University. “One acre can yield 12 or 13 tons of grass. That can produce 500 gallons of ethanol. We have work to do. But that kind of production is possible, and pretty quickly.” Credit: Gary Howe Across Midwest labs race to break down cellulose EAST LANSING, MI – Amid row after …

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Campaign Season Yields Flurry of Clean Energy Proposals

by Keith Schneider0

Energy and climate change are at the top of the list of priorities for both major presidential campaigns this year. In Denver, almost every prime time speaker at the Democratic National Convention noted the need for a new clean energy economic development strategy. In his historic speech on Thursday night Senator Barack Obama committed, if elected, to ending the nation’s addiction to foreign oil within a decade. How? By replacing foreign oil with clean biofuels, …

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