Finance clean energy, Mr. President
Along with other entrepreneurs, investors and industry stakeholders, we wrote a letter urging President Obama to craft a jobs package that includes the creation of a Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA). Swift enactment of CEDA will create jobs in 2010 and also position the U.S. as a global leader in the development and deployment of clean energy technologies for years to come.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee adopted bipartisan legislation to create CEDA last year. This pending Senate proposal would establish and fund CEDA to provide various types of flexible credit support for the development and deployment of clean energy technologies throughout the economy. CEDA would be affiliated with the Department of Energy, but have largely independent operation.
A critical feature of CEDA, as created in the Senate bill, is its focus on innovative technologies. We believe the availability of CEDA financing will help America’s emerging clean energy technology companies cross the so-called “valley of death” between the invention of a technology and its commercial deployment, and substantially accelerate and increase private sector investment necessary to position the U.S. as the global clean energy leader. In short, CEDA will help finance the scale-up of precisely the kinds of innovative technologies that will create new, 21stCentury American jobs and position the U.S. to capture the economic benefits of the global transition to low-carbon energy infrastructure.