Greens, labor leaders, and economists call for $900 billion recovery plan

Campaign for America’s Future today released a “Main Street Recovery Plan” [PDF], laying out wha the group hopes to see from the Obama team. The plan calls for investments of at least $900 billion over the next two years, including $100 billion in green investments.

“Central to the plan should be investment in green technology, reducing our dependence on foreign oil, and addressing the rising threat of global warming,” says the plan.

CAF outlines six areas of green infrastructure in need of those funds: “retrofitting buildings to improve energy efficiency, expanding mass transit and freight rail networks, constructing ‘smart’ electric-grid systems, increasing capacity for generating power from wind and solar energy, and developing carbon capture technologies and next-generation biofuels.”

The report emphasizes that $50 billion “should be considered a minimum and could be expanded if appropriate plans can be rapidly developed.”

The group hosted a presser today on the plan, which included University of Texas professor and economist James Galbraith. Galbraith, who is among the lengthy list [PDF] of economists, academics, labor leaders, and green group heads who have endorsed the plan, noted that the economic recovery package should be as large as possible. “The risks are all on the side of being too cautious,” he said.

He also emphasized the need for infrastructure and green projects: “Economic recovery in an existential crisis like this means actually building a new economy. For that, we need investment — to restore our roads, rails, transit, broadband, and water systems, to build parks and museums and libraries, to protect the environment.”