Cool Cities

We can act now to channel over $1 billion into local government efforts to improve energy efficiency, lower energy usage, and reduce fossil fuel emissions.

There have been a lot of goings-on this week at the Bev Perdue Campaign. Most of you have seen the TV ad by now, but we also released a couple of new ideas as part of Bev’s Building a New North Carolina series. Let me tell you about them…

Creating a DOT that works for North Carolina
Click here to read the four-step plan. The gist is that we must get the DOT’s house in order by decentralizing bureaucracy so that decisions are made in the field. Then we must hold contractors accountable so that we get projects on time and on budget. Combine that with ending the $170 million transfer away from the Highway Trust Fund and we can start to reign in the outrageous inflation of construction costs that is skyrocketing the projected costs of our transportation needs.

Cool Cities Assistance Initiative
Many of you may be aware of the Sierra Club’s Cool Cities program. The Sierra Club’s volunteers have done a fantastic job across the state getting their municipal governments to sign the US Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement. 37 cities and towns in North Carolina have signed the Agreement, the 4th most in the nation. The Agreement calls on municipal governments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 7% from the 1990 level by 2012.

Bev’s Cool Cities Assistance Initiative would give grants and funds to help the cities and towns who have signed the Agreement create their initial emissions reduction plans and then carry them out. The initiative is especially helpful to small towns that don’t have the resources or staff to carry on these projects.

Good morning, Tom Jensen. Thanks for joining us for live-blogging this morning.

As many of you know, Tom writes a weekly column about state and local politics for the Chapel Hill Herald. Last fall, he started working as the head of the 'Cool Cities' campaign for the North Carolina Sierra Club. When he began work in November there were 5 Cool Cities in North Carolina. Now there are 19. Tom also instituted the Sierra Club blog.

Got questions?

Cross posted at the North Carolina Sierra Club blog:

On Tuesday night the Canton Board of Aldermen endorsed the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, becoming the seventh city in North Carolina to do so. In recognition of this the North Carolina Sierra Club will hold a ceremony in April honoring the town and Mayor Smathers as a 'Cool City.'

By signing on Canton has committed to taking appropriate steps toward reaching the emissions goals outlined in the agreement. Over the last few years it has already made progress by:

-Placing their old watershed in a conservation easement and using the funds they received for doing so to build an outdoor sports complex on top of an old landfill.