The recovery act

“On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act). The Recovery Act seeks in part to spur technological advances in science and health and to invest in environmental protection and other infrastructure that will provide long-term economic benefits. EPA manages over $7 billion in projects and programs that will help achieve these goals, offers resources to help other agencies “green” a much larger set of Recovery investments, and administers environmental laws that will govern Recovery activities.”

It is great to see that our president is actually addressing and trying to improve issues we have been discussing throughout class. The act involves several of the issues that have been some of our key points in our discussions. One point to this recovery act is

-Clean water state revolving fund and drinking water state revolving fund. This part of the act will issue “$4 billion in assistance to help communities with water quality and wastewater infrastructure needs and $2 billion for drinking water infrastructure needs.” We have constantly discussed how water like every other resource we have is a finite resource. Unlike what most people think, it is not in endless supply and every day millions struggle simply to find the clean and safe water they need to survive. Many bottled water companies are trying to change their image to becoming “green” but really bottled water is about as far from “green” as can be. As Goldman describes just because a company changes one thing about product to green that doesn’t mean that the other 99 things are. The fact that this act is addressing the issue of clean water and actually putting money into helping this worldwide problem is really inspirational.

Another point to the act is

-“Brownfields: $100 million for competitive grants to evaluate and clean up former industrial and commercial sites.” As previously stated, clean water is a huge issue. Runoff from factories and plants can contaminate ground water that about 50% of the US depends on for drinking water. Helping to clean areas that may have or may still be contaminated by industry could really help to improve the amount of clean drinking water. If the drinking water is improved in the US there could be excess that we in turn could use to help those who really don’t have any.

A third point to the act is

-“Diesel Emissions Reduction: $300 million for grants and loans to help regional, state and local governments, tribal agencies, and non-profit organizations with projects that reduce diesel emissions." Carbon emissions and global warming have also been a large issue and concern within our class. We all know that humans and agriculture have had a large impact on an increase of carbon emissions and diesel emission also play a large role in effecting the environment as well. If we can work to decrease all these emissions we can hopefully slow and maybe even reverse global warming from causing serious problems not only in the US but throughout the world.

The act also includes things like cleaning hazardous waste sites and cleanup of petroleum leaks from underground storage. Overall, however, the main goal of the recovery act is to better the environment and improve the public health of citizens. One of the key words in this act is to "provide long-term economic benefits." We have constantly discussed how we need to begin to focus on the long term effects rather than the short term. Just like how Nancy Folbre uses the example of a goddess who creates a race for three nations. Although, none of the three teams knew exactly how long the race would last, they each planned their own strategies. As you could have guessed the team that took its time and cared for each other emerged victorious. I agree strongly with those that think there is truth to the story “because long-term sustainability matters more than short-term success.”

Earlier in class we also had discussed how in order for a large change to occur the government is one of the only groups that can help this occur. When Cuba reached it's peak oil it's government stepped in and helped the people to come back from what could have been a completely devastating event. Hopefully, since our government is already trying to step in, we can prevent the devastating event Cuba experienced. I think its great to see that the issues we’ve been discussing in class like clean water, emissions, global warming, and going green are apparent to not only us but the world as well. With the government and media getting out more propaganda and trying to pass new bills and laws to protect our environment we can hopefully work to save our Earth, together.

• http://www.epa.gov/recovery/index.html
• The Invisible Heart by Nancy Folbre
• Cuba video
• www.pbs.org/moyers
• Ecological Intelligence by Daniel Goldman