Green is good. What’s green?

“Greenwash” describes a practice employed by businesses to market products as green even if they really aren’t, in order to appeal to conservationists who could be customers. With Democrats emphasizing the environment as they write an economic recovery plan, some environmental groups say greenwashing has moved from an advertising ploy to a lobbying tool.

“Green is in style,” said Deron Lovaas, transportation policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “Anyone who says they are a green project is seen as worthy of something.”

{mosads}The trouble, Lovaas says, is that green isn’t a style. It isn’t the new black. It is a science. And he disputes the way some groups are using green to push projects that, scientifically speaking, aren’t very green.

The highway lobby, for example, has argued that more roads and bridges will alleviate delays in the transport of goods that cost the economy billions of dollars a year. Some advocates also note that new highways mean less congestion from idling cars and trucks.

That’s green. But the green soon fades. “When you improve flow levels you lower fuel consumption,” Lovaas says. “But the question is for how long, because when you add capacity you generate more traffic.” Because carbon dioxide lingers in the atmosphere for decades, “What matters is the long run,” Lovaas said.

Another campaign that sticks in some environmentalists’ craw is “clean coal.” Groups like NRDC argue that no such thing exists, at least not now. Democrats included millions of dollars to develop technologies to capture and store CO2.

Kurt Davies of Greenpeace said coal’s campaign to be included in the stimulus amounted to an effort to get a “toehold” in the federal budget. Davies said his group doesn’t necessarily oppose clean coal, but is dubious that it will ever work as a strategy to control climate change.

“Let them do the research. But not with your money and my money,” Davies said.

Coal lobbyists say the money will be well spent.

 “What the greens don’t understand is if we are going to solve climate change we won’t be able to do it by stopping coal technology, because the world is going to use coal regardless of what the U.S. does — and use it in far greater quantities than we ever have,” said Luke Popovich of the National Mining Association.

Jim Snyder

Budget envy

One of the things to emerge from the economic crisis and the effort in Congress to craft a fix is how much mayors dislike governors. For weeks before House Democrats released the details of their recovery plan, mayors and other local officials fretted that too much money would be sent to states, where, they feared, governors would simply use it to close budget holes, leaving their cities in the lurch.

At their winter meeting last weekend, the mayors seemed to breathe a bit easier, largely lauding the Democrats’ recovery plan. Miami Mayor Manuel Diaz, who also serves as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, called the stimulus released by House Democrats a good first step.

But Diaz also took a shot at governors, noting a poll that found voters trust their local government over their state government by a 3-to-1 margin.

Other mayors said their form of government was generally more transparent and more responsive to the public.

“We see our citizens at the grocery store,” said Burnsville, Minn., Mayor Elizabeth Kautz.

“Mayors are where the rubber meets the road,” added Trenton, N.J., Mayor Douglas Palmer.

Charleston, S.C., Mayor Joseph Riley said that unemployment was a “statistic” at the state level.

“But we see the extreme difficulties our citizens are having.”

Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert was a bit more conciliatory, saying after a news conference that the issue wasn’t about governors versus mayors. Rather, he said, the issue was how to make sure the money goes to projects that will do the most good — and the best way to do that was to bypass state capitals.

So the mayors were happy to see money in the stimulus go to budget lines that support energy efficiency programs and to Community Development Block Grants, because the money is distributed by formula to cities.

More money would be welcome, however. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called the House package a “good start,” adding that he’d like to see even more money directly allocated to cities like his.

Jim Snyder