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VERY SLOWLY if you mean wind and solar alternatives. If you review total world energy consumption wind and solar at around 2% after trillions of money wasted on subsidies. The simple reason is intermittency that is easy to understand. There is no such thing as a stand alone wind or solar electricity plant. Any renewable plant must be coupled with a reliable coal, gas or oil partner plant so the electricity is produced every second 7/24 even when the wind does not blow or the sun shine.Wind turbines are yesterday’s technology abandoned 100 years ago from the farms for good reason.“The World Energy System”Every year energy use increases, and in 2018 the addition of fossil fuelled primary energy outpaced that from renewables for the 3rd consecutive year.Fossil fuels accounted for 65% of electricity generation and the annual increase of fossil fueled electricity generation was 9% greater than the combination of hydro and renewables.The amount of CO2 released per unit of primary energy in 2015 was the same as that in 1995.* Post date December 7, 2019 (The World Energy System)**Chart 6. World primary energy supply by share in 2017 **(the share of marine energy is too small to show). Data: Calculated using IEA(2019) online free version. This dataset is the only available that shows all energy sources.The World Energy System (The World Energy System)CLIMATE NEWSENERGYGREEN TECHEntire state of South Australia has power black out because of flawed climate change energy policy4 years agoGuest BloggerGovernor Brown has California on same “dark ages” renewable energy path as South AustraliaGuest essay by Larry HamlinThe entire state of South Australia suffered a complete power black out on Wednesday September 28 plugging it’s nearly 1.7 million residents, communities and businesses into darkness.Loss of available power from transmissions lines feeding the region from other states coupled with South Australia’s ill-considered climate change energy policy of forced shutdown of the states operating coal plants to promote heavy use of renewable energy created this latest power debacle.The September 28 state wide black out is clearly creating challenges to the governments climate change policy initiative which is responsible for these power availability and high energy price debacles and which has jeopardized the power supply of the entire region. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-25/sa’s-power-price-spike-sounds-national-electricity-alarm/7875970)Unfortunately Governor Brown has California on the same path as the state of South Australia where the present and future reliability of the states power supply is dependeRenewable energy companies are failing and not sustainable.Nottingham council 'sorry' as Robin Hood Energy collapsesRobin Hood Goes Belly Up: Green Energy Company Collapses, 230 Staff Lose Their JobsDate: 05/09/20BBC NewsA council has apologised after losing millions of pounds of public cash in the collapse of an energy company it started.Robin Hood Energy (RHE) is shutting with the loss of 230 jobs despite millions poured into it by Nottingham City Council.British Gas will take on its customer base of thousands of homes in England.The council said the sale will not make up all its losses, which leaked documents suggest are £38.1 million.Council leader David Mellen declined to say how much it stands to lose, saying the total from the sale will depend on how many customers switch to British Gas.However, leaked documents seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service suggest the taxpayers of Nottingham are out of pocket to the tune of £38.1 million.The confidential documents show the sale price for the customer base of RHE is estimated by the council to be around £26 million.The final exact figure will not be known until the transfer of customers to British Gas is complete, but the £38.1 million write-off is the council’s estimate.Robin Hood Energy (RHE) is shutting with the loss of 230 jobs despite millions poured into it by Nottingham City Council.British Gas will take on its customer base of thousands of homes in England.The council said the sale will not make up all its losses, which leaked documents suggest are £38.1 million.Council leader David Mellen declined to say how much it stands to lose, saying the total from the sale will depend on how many customers switch to British Gas.However, leaked documents seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service suggest the taxpayers of Nottingham are out of pocket to the tune of £38.1 million.The confidential documents show the sale price for the customer base of RHE is estimated by the council to be around £26 million.The final exact figure will not be known until the transfer of customers to British Gas is complete, but the £38.1 million write-off is the council's estimate.'Very sorry'Mr Mellen said: "There will be significant amounts of money we won't be able to recoup."Today my thoughts are particularly with those people facing a redundancy process."I'm very sorry that is the case, I don't hesitate to say sorry when we've got things wrong, my priority now is to get things right."Image captionThe city council said RHE customers do not need to take any action and will be contacted with more detailsThe company was set up in 2015 with the intention of tackling fuel poverty and claimed to be the first council-run energy company in the UK.But a recent report by auditors Grant Thornton found the company had struggled in the energy market, making losses every year it existed and becoming reliant on council cash.Their report showed the council had invested £43m into it and provided £16.5m of guarantees and accused the authority of "institutional blindness" for continuing to prop it up.Councillor Mellen said they "had to" stop supporting it "off the back of the people of Nottingham".AnalysisBy Hugh Casswell, BBC Radio Nottingham political reporterThis has been a disaster and an embarrassment for Nottingham City Council.At a time when they routinely criticise central government for a loss of funding, they've been publicly shamed for losing millions in taxpayer cash. What's more, they've had to accept it. No spin. No deflection. A straight and unavoidable mea culpa.One key question remains though - exactly how much has been lost? We may not know that for some time.And what do all those lost millions mean? Put simply, it's added to the council's need to make savings - a particularly bitter pill to swallow for council employees who may be facing redundancy and for Nottingham residents who may lose out from service cuts.Local government minister Simon Clarke said: "The people of Nottingham will be aghast at this disastrous waste of their hard-earned money."This will likely have stark consequences in the real world in terms of service cuts and job losses at Nottingham City Council."It is now for the council's leadership to decide whether they are the right people to continue to lead one of our most important cities."Robin Hood Energy supplied 10 council-run energy providers. According to the company, these are:Angelic Energy (Islington Council)Beam Energy (Barking and Dagenham Council)CitizEN Energy (Southampton City Council and neighbouring councils)Fosse Energy (Leicestershire County Council and Leicester City Council)Great North Energy (Doncaster Council & Barnsley MBC)The Leccy (Liverpool City Council)RAM Energy (Derby City Council)Southend Energy (Southend-on-Sea Borough Council)White Rose Energy (Leeds City Council )Your Energy Sussex (West Sussex County Council and local authorities)In total it supplied 112,000 people and 2,600 businesses.Every customer will now be automatically switched to British Gas, unless they opt to go elsewhere.British Gas announced they were buying the customer base, but not the rest of the company.Robin Hood Goes Belly Up: Green Energy Company Collapses, 230 Staff Lose Their Jobs - The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)CAVEAT: Wind and solar are not renewable if you consider how they are manufactured.The myth of renewable energyBy Dawn Stover, November 22, 2011“Clean.” “Green.” What do those words mean? When President Obama talks about “clean energy,” some people think of “clean coal” and low-carbon nuclear power, while others envision shiny solar panels and wind turbines. And when politicians tout “green jobs,” they might just as easily be talking about employment at General Motors as at Greenpeace. “Clean” and “green” are wide open to interpretation and misappropriation; that’s why they’re so often mentioned in quotation marks. Not so for renewable energy, however.Somehow, people across the entire enviro-political spectrum seem to have reached a tacit, near-unanimous agreement about what renewable means: It’s an energy category that includes solar, wind, water, biomass, and geothermal power. As the US Energy Department explains it to kids: “Renewable energy comes from things that won’t run out — wind, water, sunlight, plants, and more. These are things we can reuse over and over again. … Non-renewable energy comes from things that will run out one day — oil, coal, natural gas, and uranium.”Renewable energy sounds so much more natural and believable than a perpetual-motion machine, but there’s one big problem: Unless you’re planning to live without electricity and motorized transportation, you need more than just wind, water, sunlight, and plants for energy. You need raw materials, real estate, and other things that will run out one day. You need stuff that has to be mined, drilled, transported, and bulldozed — not simply harvested or farmed. You need non-renewable resources:• Solar power. While sunlight is renewable — for at least another four billion years — photovoltaic panels are not. Nor is desert groundwater, used in steam turbines at some solar-thermal installations. Even after being redesigned to use air-cooled condensers that will reduce its water consumption by 90 percent, California’s Blythe Solar Power Project, which will be the world’s largest when it opens in 2013, will require an estimated 600 acre-feet of groundwater annually for washing mirrors, replenishing feedwater, and cooling auxiliary equipment.• Geothermal power. These projects also depend on groundwater — replenished by rain, yes, but not as quickly as it boils off in turbines. At the world’s largest geothermal power plant, the Geysers in California, for example, production peaked in the late 1980s and then the project literally began running out of steam.• Wind power. According to the American Wind Energy Association, the 5,700 turbines installed in the United States in 2009 required approximately 36,000 miles of steel rebar and 1.7 million cubic yards of concrete (enough to pave a four-foot-wide, 7,630-mile-long sidewalk). The gearbox of a two-megawatt wind turbine contains about 800 pounds of neodymium and 130 pounds of dysprosium — rare earth metals that are rare because they’re found in scattered deposits, rather than in concentrated ores, and are difficult to extract.• Biomass. In developed countries, biomass is envisioned as a win-win way to produce energy while thinning wildfire-prone forests or anchoring soil with perennial switchgrass plantings. But expanding energy crops will mean less land for food production, recreation, and wildlife habitat. In many parts of the world where biomass is already used extensively to heat homes and cook meals, this renewable energy is responsible for severe deforestation and air pollution.• Hydropower. Using currents, waves, and tidal energy to produce electricity is still experimental, but hydroelectric power from dams is a proved technology. It already supplies about 16 percent of the world’s electricity, far more than all other renewable sources combined. Maybe that’s why some states with renewable portfolio standards don’t count hydropower as a renewable energy source; it’s so common now, it just doesn’t fit the category formerly known as “alternative” energy. Still, that’s not to say that hydropower is more renewable than solar or wind power. The amount of concrete and steel in a wind-tower foundation is nothing compared with Grand Coulee or Three Gorges, and dams have an unfortunate habit of hoarding sediment and making fish, well, non-renewable.All of these technologies also require electricity transmission from rural areas to population centers. Wilderness is not renewable once roads and power-line corridors fragment it. And while proponents would have you believe that a renewable energy project churns out free electricity forever, the life expectancy of a solar panel or wind turbine is actually shorter than that of a conventional power plant. Even dams are typically designed to last only about 50 years. So what, exactly, makes renewable energy different from coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power?Renewable technologies are often less damaging to the climate and create fewer toxic wastes than conventional energy sources. But meeting the world’s total energy demands in 2030 with renewable energy alone would take an estimated 3.8 million wind turbines (each with twice the capacity of today’s largest machines), 720,000 wave devices, 5,350 geothermal plants, 900 hydroelectric plants, 490,000 tidal turbines, 1.7 billion rooftop photovoltaic systems, 40,000 solar photovoltaic plants, and 49,000 concentrated solar power systems. That’s a heckuva lot of neodymium.Unfortunately, “renewable energy” is a meaningless term with no established standards. Like an emperor parading around without clothes, it gets a free pass, because nobody dares to confront an inconvenient truth: None of our current energy technologies are truly renewable, at least not in the way they are currently being deployed. We haven’t discovered any form of energy that is completely clean and recyclable, and the notion that such an energy source can ever be found is a mirage.The only genuinely sustainable energy scenario is one in which energy demands do not continue to escalate indefinitely. As a recent commentary by Jane C. S. Long in Nature pointed out, meeting ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gases cannot be accomplished with “piecemeal reductions,” such as increased use of wind power and biofuels. Long did the math for California and discovered that even if the state replaced or retrofitted every building to very high efficiency standards, ran almost all of its cars on electricity, and doubled its electricity-generation capacity while simultaneously replacing it with emissions-free energy sources, California could only reduce emissions by perhaps 60 percent below 1990 levels — far less than its 80 percent target. Long says reaching that target “will take new technology.” Maybe so, but it will also take a new honesty about the limitations of technology. Notably, Long doesn’t mention the biggest obstacle to meeting California’s emissions-reduction goal: The state’s population is expected to grow from today’s 40 million to 60 million by 2050.There are now seven billion humans on this planet. Until we find a way to reduce our energy consumption and to share Earth’s finite resources more equitably among nations and generations, “renewable” energy might as well be called “miscellaneous.”The myth of renewable energy - Bulletin of the Atomic ScientistsWORLD ENERGY CONSUMPTION GROWTH IS FOSSIL FUELS NOT WIND AND SOLARNot possible to imagine a world where wind solar really matter as alternatives to fossil fuels. The hope seems just a pipe dream when after a trillion or more in subsidies they do not exceed 2% of world energy consumption.The evidence of excessive consumer costs when renewables are added is well documented and I submit this factor alone means renewable energy future is dim. Wind and coal are coupled to ensure reliable power as this next photo shows. How is that renewable power when it depends on coal?Wind turbines in Europe, with a coal power plant in the distance.Ina Fassbender/ReutersThese Countries Have The Highest Energy Usage Per PersonTHE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING RENEWABLES CAUSE HIGH RETAIL ELECTRICITY RATESSOUTH AUSTRALIA, DENMARK and GERMANY have the most investment in wind and solar renewables for its grid and the highest cost electricity as a result. It is a matter of math renewables demand two producers one unreliable (wind and solar) and one fully reliable (fossil fuels)Electricity prices in selected countries 2018Published by N. Sönnichsen, Aug 25, 2020This statistic shows electricity prices in leading economies worldwide in 2018. In the United States, electricity prices stood at 0.13 U.S. dollars per kilowatt hour. In the United Kingdom, electricity users paid 0.22 U.S. dollars per kilowatt hour.Electricity prices in selected countriesElectricity prices by country can vary widely and even within a country itself, depending on factors like infrastructure and geography. Among developed countries, Sweden enjoys some of the cheapest electricity in the world. For global electricity prices, Germany topped the list of countries with the highest electricity prices worldwide in 2018. German customers were charged around 0.33 U.S. dollars per kilowatt hour plus value added tax.The selection of fuels used to generate electricity remains a main driver behind Italy’s high electricity prices. There are no nuclear power plants in the country. Due to the fact that Italy is located in a seismically active area, all nuclear power plants were closed following a popular referendum in the late 1980s, when an explosion in Chernobyl reminded Europeans of the dangers of nuclear power. As a result, the country’s electricity generation mix consists mainly of natural gas, renewable energy, petroleum products and coal. Although Italy has one of the largest proved natural gas reserves in Europe, the Mediterranean country produces very little natural gas and is heavily dependent on imports. The main source countries for Italian natural gas imports include Algeria, Russia and Libya. In light of political instability in the said countries, Italy might turn to producing more electricity from renewable energy sources, including hydropower, geothermal power and solar electricity. In 2017, Italy’s cumulative solar photovoltaic capacity reached 19.7 gigawatts, making it the fifth largest market for solar PV power.Read moreGlobal electricity prices in 2018, by select country(in U.S. dollars per kilowatt hour)Electricity prices around the world 2018 | StatistaThese graphs tell the story as more renewables go into the grid the price of electricity goes up. Why? Intermittency of wind and solar require backup of fossil fuel reliability.It is a big mistake to look at wind and solar in isolation from their effect on installed power where the intermittency hits the consumer hard with dramatically increased costs.Research in the UK shows that thanks to expensive subsidies for renewables seniors must decide whether to heat or eat. This is horrible and in addition these subsidies for renewables do nothing for the climate.Coal Rush: China, Japan & India Back Coal-Fired Future With Hundreds of New PlantsAugust 5, 2020 by stopthesethings 2 CommentsReports of the ‘death’ of coal have been greatly exaggerated, with the economic powerhouses of Asia – China, Japan and India – building new plants hand over fist.The pattern across Asia is unmistakable; unreliable wind and solar have been snubbed in favour of coal-fired power plants, with new nuclear plants running a close second.Don Dears takes a look at the resurgence of coal as the power source of choice in any country serious about delivering reliable and affordable electricity to businesses and households.Don’t Ignore CoalPower for USADonn Dears14 July 2020Don’t ignore coal. Other countries aren’t.In fact, the new high efficiency low emission (HELE), ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plants are being built in China, Japan, India, and elsewhere.These power plants operate at very high temperatures and pressures, with an efficiency of 45% HHV. This compares with the existing fleet of coal-fired power plants in the US that have an average efficiency of 33% HHV.This means that pollutants from HELE power plants are 45% lower than from existing coal-fired power plants while CO2 emissions are cut even more.Countries that are rich in coal, but lack plentiful, cheap natural gas, are finding that coal is the cheapest, most reliable source of electricity, other than hydro, they can have.Wind and solar don’t come close, especially when they need expensive storage. For more information go to: Coal and the future of EnergyJapan is planning to build 22 HELE plants, largely to replace the nuclear power plants shut down after the Fukushima disaster.China has plans to build over 300 HELE plants, some in China and the remainder in other countries around the world.The fact is, China is tearing down its subcritical and supercritical coal-fired power plants and replacing them with new HELE, ultra-supercritical power plants.The United States could benefit by doing the same thing, but EPA regulations prohibit building HELE coal-fired power plants in the US.Replacing existing supercritical coal-fired power plants in the United Sates with HELE plants would reduce CO2 emissions, while also reducing pollutants such as particulates.These power plants would provide baseload, reliable power, 24/7/365 at a cost lower than the cost of building a like amount of wind and solar together with their accompanying storage.The HELE coal-fired power plant would last for at least 60 years, while the wind and solar installations would have to be replaced every twenty years, and their batteries would have to be replaced every ten years.In addition, the HELE coal-fired power plants would generate over twice as much electricity.The reason? HELE plants have a capacity factor of 85%, while wind has a capacity factor of 35%, and PV solar has a capacity factor of, at best, 22%.The United States is blessed with a large amount of low-cost natural gas which allows the building of power plants even more efficient than HELE plants, but efforts to prevent building natural gas pipelines and preventing Fracking could mean that HELE plants could be competitive in some areas of the United States.Coal shouldn’t be ignored anywhere in the world where HELE ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plants can be built.Power for USAIsogo Power Plant, Japan: cleanest coal-fired pow­er plant in the world.Coal Rush: China, Japan & India Back Coal-Fired Future With Hundreds of New PlantsMexico Says “Hasta La Vista” To Inefficient Green Energies. Could Be “Death Knell” For Renewables”By P Gosselin on22. May 2020German public broadcasting Deutsche Welle (DW) here reports how Mexico has decided to end its transition the renewable energies, angering activists and investors.The move, DW reports, “is scaring off environmentalists and investors” and could be the “death knell for renewable energies.”Apparently President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had traveled to Oaxaca and saw how the local hills were blighted by wind turbines, commenting: “These windmills are spoiling the landscape” and “produce very little energy.”Wind energy is notorious for its inefficiency, unreliable supply, high costs, blight to the environment and health hazards. Moreover, the business has been taken over by crony capitalists out to make a killing on the massively subsidized projects. In fact, as Michael Moore’s latest film shows, green energies aren’t really green at all.The move by the Mexican government has angered green energy activists and investors. Another reason cited by the Mexican government is “grid instability”.The reform will have some impact on German investors, DW reports. For example: the Potsdam-based company Notus, who since 2014 has been planning five solar and wind power plants. Now their future remains uncertain.“The new directive could be the death knell for renewable energies,” DW reports. “Protest letters from the Canadian and European Union embassies refer to 44 ongoing projects worth USD 6.8 billion.” Another problem is Mexico’s power grid is not designed to handle the massively fluctuating power fed in by wind and sun.Though DW suggests that the return to fossil fuels is going to mean higher costs for Mexican consumers, most results from around the world suggest the opposite is the case. Germany, for example has committed a whopping 1 trillion dollars to green energies since 2000, yet today the country has among the world’s most expensive electricity prices for consumers. Annually tens of thousands of households see their power cut off because they can no longer afford to pay the power bills.Mexico is wise to move to a source of energy that is plentiful, affordable, stable and one that doesn’t destroy the environment on a massive scale.Mexico Says “Hasta La Vista” To Inefficient Green Energies. Could Be “Death Knell” For Renewables”The Reason Renewables Can't Power Modern Civilization Is Because They Were Never Meant ToMichael Shellenberger ContributorEnergyI write about energy and the environment.“The Energiewende — the biggest political project since reunification — threatens to fail,” reports... [+]DER SPIEGELOver the last decade, journalists have held up Germany’s renewables energy transition, the Energiewende, as an environmental model for the world.“Many poor countries, once intent on building coal-fired power plants to bring electricity to their people, are discussing whether they might leapfrog the fossil age and build clean grids from the outset,” thanks to the Energiewende, wrote a New York Times reporter in 2014.Most Popular In: EnergyGuyana’s Election Controversy Threatens Its Energy FutureWith Germany as inspiration, the United Nations and World Bank poured billions into renewables like wind, solar, and hydro in developing nations like Kenya.But then, last year, Germany was forced to acknowledge that it had to delay its phase-out of coal, and would not meet its 2020 greenhouse gas reduction commitments. It announced plans to bulldoze an ancient church and forest in order to get at the coal underneath it.After renewables investors and advocates, including Al Gore and Greenpeace, criticized Germany, journalists came to the country’s defense. “Germany has fallen short of its emission targets in part because its targets were so ambitious,” one of them argued last summer.“If the rest of the world made just half Germany’s effort, the future for our planet would look less bleak,” she wrote. “So Germany, don’t give up. And also: Thank you.”But Germany didn’t just fall short of its climate targets. Its emissions have flat-lined since 2009.Now comes a major article in the country’s largest newsweekly magazine, Der Spiegel, titled, “A Botched Job in Germany” ("Murks in Germany"). The magazine’s cover shows broken wind turbines and incomplete electrical transmission towers against a dark silhouette of Berlin.“The Energiewende — the biggest political project since reunification — threatens to fail,” write Der Spiegel’s Frank Dohmen, Alexander Jung, Stefan Schultz, Gerald Traufetter in their a 5,700-word investigative story.Over the past five years alone, the Energiewende has cost Germany €32 billion ($36 billion) annually, and opposition to renewables is growing in the German countryside.“The politicians fear citizen resistance” Der Spiegel reports. “There is hardly a wind energy project that is not fought.”In response, politicians sometimes order “electrical lines be buried underground but that is many times more expensive and takes years longer.”As a result, the deployment of renewables and related transmission lines is slowing rapidly. Less than half as many wind turbines (743) were installed in 2018 as were installed in 2017, and just 30 kilometers of new transmission were added in 2017.Solar and wind advocates say cheaper solar panels and wind turbines will make the future growth in renewables cheaper than past growth but there are reasons to believe the opposite will be the case.It will cost Germany $3-$4 trillion to increase renewables as share of electricity from today's 35%... [+]AG ENERGIEBINLANZENDer Spiegel cites a recent estimate that it would cost Germany “€3.4 trillion ($3.8 trillion),” or seven times more than it spent from 2000 to 2025, to increase solar and wind three to five-fold by 2050.Between 2000 and 2019, Germany grew renewables from 7% to 35% of its electricity. And as much of Germany's renewable electricity comes from biomass, which scientists view as polluting and environmentally degrading, as from solar.Of the 7,700 new kilometers of transmission lines needed, only 8% have been built, while large-scale electricity storage remains inefficient and expensive. “A large part of the energy used is lost,” the reporters note of a much-hyped hydrogen gas project, “and the efficiency is below 40%... No viable business model can be developed from this.”Meanwhile, the 20-year subsidies granted to wind, solar, and biogas since 2000 will start coming to an end next year. “The wind power boom is over,” Der Spiegel concludes.All of which raises a question: if renewables can’t cheaply power Germany, one of the richest and most technologically advanced countries in the world, how could a developing nation like Kenya ever expect them to allow it to “leapfrog” fossil fuels?The Question of TechnologyThe earliest and most sophisticated 20th Century case for renewables came from a German who is widely considered the most influential philosopher of the 20th Century, Martin Heidegger.In his 1954 essay, “The Question Concerning of Technology,” Heidegger condemned the view of nature as a mere resource for human consumption.The use of “modern technology,” he wrote, “puts to nature the unreasonable demand that it supply energy which can be extracted and stored as such… Air is now set upon to yield nitrogen, the earth to yield ore, ore to yield uranium…to yield atomic energy.”The solution, Heidegger argued, was to yoke human society and its economy to unreliable energy flows. He even condemned hydro-electric dams, for dominating the natural environment, and praised windmills because they “do not unlock energy in order to store it.”These weren’t just aesthetic preferences. Windmills have traditionally been useful to farmers whereas large dams have allowed poor agrarian societies to industrialize.In the US, Heidegger’s views were picked up by renewable energy advocates. Barry Commoner in 1969 argued that a transition to renewables was needed to bring modern civilization "into harmony with the ecosphere."The goal of renewables was to turn modern industrial societies back into agrarian ones, argued Murray Bookchin in his 1962 book, Our Synthetic Environment.Bookchin admitted his proposal "conjures up an image of cultural isolation and social stagnation, of a journey backward in history to the agrarian societies of the medieval and ancient worlds."But then, starting around the year 2000, renewables started to gain a high-tech luster. Governments and private investors poured $2 trillion into solar and wind and related infrastructure, creating the impression that renewables were profitable aside from subsidies.Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk proclaimed that a rich, high-energy civilization could be powered by cheap solar panels and electric cars.Journalists reported breathlessly on the cost declines in batteries, imagining a tipping point at which conventional electricity utilities would be “disrupted.”But no amount of marketing could change the poor physics of resource-intensive and land-intensive renewables. Solar farms take 450 times more land than nuclear plants, and wind farms take 700 times more land than natural gas wells, to produce the same amount of energy.Efforts to export the Energiewende to developing nations may prove even more devastating.The new wind farm in Kenya, inspired and financed by Germany and other well-meaning Western nations, is located on a major flight path of migratory birds. Scientists say it will kill hundreds of endangered eagles.“It’s one of the three worst sites for a wind farm that I’ve seen in Africa in terms of its potential to kill threatened birds,” a biologist explained.In response, the wind farm’s developers have done what Europeans have long done in Africa, which is to hire the organizations, which ostensibly represent the doomed eagles and communities, to collaborate rather than fight the project.Kenya won't be able to “leapfrog” fossil fuels with its wind farm. On the contrary, all of that unreliable wind energy is likely to increase the price of electricity and make Kenya’s slow climb out of poverty even slower.Heidegger, like much of the conservation movement, would have hated what the Energiewende has become: an excuse for the destruction of natural landscapes and local communities.Opposition to renewables comes from the country peoples that Heidegger idolized as more authentic and “grounded” than urbane cosmopolitan elites who fetishize their solar roofs and Teslas as signs of virtue.Germans, who will have spent $580 billion on renewables and related infrastructure by 2025, express great pride in the Energiewende. “It’s our gift to the world,” a renewables advocate told The Times.Tragically, many Germans appear to have believed that the billions they spent on renewables would redeem them. “Germans would then at last feel that they have gone from being world-destroyers in the 20th century to world-saviors in the 21st,” noted a reporter.Many Germans will, like Der Spiegel, claim the renewables transition was merely “botched,” but it wasn't. The transition to renewables was doomed because modern industrial people, no matter how Romantic they are, do not want to return to pre-modern life.The reason renewables can’t power modern civilization is because they were never meant to. One interesting question is why anybody ever thought they could.The Reason Renewables Can't Power Modern Civilization Is Because They Were Never Meant ToAuthor Steve Goreham discusses the costs of wind and solar being added to the grid and how consumers pay in two ways – for subsidies and through much higher electricity rates. In the US, electric power rates in 9 of 12 wind states went up 12 to 35% from 2008 to 2015, while in the same time overall US power prices rose only 4.8%. He explains that South Australia is now seeing wide area blackouts due to unreliability related to wind power on the grid and simultaneous coal phase-out. Steve’s full presentation can be seen at: Climate Science and the Myths of Renewable Energy: https://youtu.be/mtHreJbr2WMBill Gates Slams Unreliable Wind & Solar: ‘Let’s Quit Jerking Around With Renewables & Batteries’February 18, 2019 by stopthesethings 41 CommentsBill says it’s time to stop jerking around with wind & solar.When the world’s richest entrepreneur says wind and solar will never work, it’s probably time to listen.Bill Gates made a fortune applying common sense to the untapped market of home computing. The meme has it that IBM’s CEO believed there was only a market for five computers in the entire world. Gates thought otherwise. Building a better system than any of his rivals and shrewdly working the marketplace, resulted in hundreds of millions hooked on PCs, Windows and Office. This is a man that knows a thing or two about systems and a lot about what it takes to satisfy the market.For almost a century, electricity generation and distribution were treated as a tightly integrated system: it was designed and built as one, and is meant to operate as designed. However, the chaotic delivery of wind and solar have all but trashed the electricity generation and delivery system, as we know it. Germany and South Australia are only the most obvious examples.During an interview at Stanford University late last year, Bill Gates attacks the idiots who believe that we’re all just a heartbeat away from an all wind and sun powered future.Gates on renewables: How would Tokyo survive a 3 day typhoon with unreliable energy?Jo Nova BlogJo Nova14 February 2019Make no mistake, Bill Gates totally believes the climate change scare story but even he can see that renewables are not the answer, it’s not about the cost, it’s the reliability.He quotes Vaclav Smil:Here’s Toyko, 2p7 million people, you have three days of a cyclone every year. It’s 23GW of electricity for three days. Tell me what battery solution is going sit there and provide that power.As Gates says: Let’s not jerk around. You’re multiple orders of magnitude — … — That’s nothing, that doesn’t solve the reliability problem.During storms, clouds cut solar panel productivity (unless hail destroys it) and wind turbines have to shut down in high winds.The whole interview was part of a presentation at Stanford late last year:Cheap renewables won’t stop global warming, says Bill GatesThe interview by Arun Majumdar, co-director of Stanford Energy’s Precourt Institute for Energy, which organized the conference, can be watched here.When financial analysts proposed rating companies on their CO2 output to drive down emissions, Gates was appalled by the idea that the climate and energy problem would be easy to solve. He asked them: “Do you guys on Wall Street have something in your desks that makes steel? Where is fertilizer, cement, plastic going to come from? Do planes fly through the sky because of some number you put in a spreadsheet?”“The idea that we have the current tools and it’s just because these utility people are evil people and if we could just beat on them and put (solar panels) on our rooftop—that is more of a block than climate denial,” Gates said. “The ‘climate is easy to solve’ group is our biggest problem.”If he only looked at the numbers in the climate science debate…Jo Nova BlogBill Gates Slams Unreliable Wind & Solar: ‘Let’s Quit Jerking Around With Renewables & Batteries’

Well, we already have three lazy smart-aleck answers.It took me less than two minutes to find this on Joe Biden’s campaign web siteThere’s a lot more than what I’ve reproduced below., but these three areas are the highlights.Joe Biden's Proposals to Set Up Support for Deserving Small Businesses – Joe Biden for PresidentEstablish a True Small Business Fund: Congressional Democrats secured a set-aside of $60 billion in funds for smaller lenders and community-based financial institutions, which are frequently best positioned to get resources into the hands of deserving small businesses in vulnerable communities. Joe Biden is calling on the Trump administration to go even further as it implements the PPP. The Trump administration should reserve fully half of all the new PPP funds for small businesses with 50 employees or less, so the bigger and more sophisticated aren’t able to win in a first-come, first-served race. We should make sure we serve the mom-and-pop shops — beauty salons, barbershops, diners, local auto body shops. Back on April 3, Joe Biden asked the administration to “produce a weekly dashboard to show which small businesses are accessing loans – to make sure that the program isn’t leaving out communities, minority- and women-owned businesses, or the smallest businesses.” They have not done so. It is unacceptable to have a small-business program that is leaving minority business owners out in the cold, or that firms with fewer than 20 employees received only about 20% of the money – even though they make up about one third of payroll. Small non-profits—including churches, mosques, and synagogues— should also be eligible for this fund. The Trump administration can do this if it makes it a priority. The country will be watching.No Unjust Enrichment: Keep Well-Off Business Owners from Using Any Program to Unjustly Enrich Themselves: Our emergency programs should be designed to keep small business owners and their workers whole during the crisis – not to make well-off business owners better off than they would be with no crisis. Unfortunately, there is a very real risk of high-paid business owners suffering little revenue harm seeking to have loans forgiven that are for more than the losses they have suffered. This is just wrong. Joe Biden would expedite loans with less unnecessary paperwork to hard-hit businesses, and never punish firms or banks for good-faith mistakes. But Biden would also make clear that no business owner should be receiving more than their lost revenue – and that there should be heightened scrutiny of certain types of small businesses – consulting, accounting, legal, tax advice, hedge funds – and where owners and executives are making above $500,000. He is calling on the Trump administration to embrace this approach in implementing the next round of funding.Make Sure That the Program’s Terms Actually Help Small Businesses. Joe Biden would also support further rule changes to the PPP that would ensure deserving small businesses get all the help they need for as long as they need, including:Providing a guarantee that every qualifying small business will get relief, rather than capping the fund in a way that forces small firms to compete against one another.Authorizing more generous loans that allow for small businesses in need to both keep workers on payroll and cover fixed costs for the duration of the crisis. It’s no use paying for payroll if a small business can’t keep the lights on.Extending the eight-week limitation so that payroll forgiveness continues for the duration of the crisis (in early April, Biden called upon the administration to “immediately re-engage Congress to allow for small business loans that can keep people on the payroll for far longer than eight weeks”), and there should be flexibility to allow businesses to decide when the covered period begins.Establishing look-back audit mechanisms to police against abuse based on a review of net business income.THE BIDEN PLAN TO INVEST IN MIDDLE CLASS COMPETITIVENESS – Joe Biden for PresidentJoe Biden is running for president to rebuild the middle class—and this time make sure everyone comes along. Toward that end, Biden is calling for a transformational investment in our country’s infrastructure and future: $1.3 trillion over ten years, to equip the American middle class to compete and win in the global economy, to move the U.S. to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, and to ensure that cities, towns, and rural areas all across our country share in that growth.MAKE UNPRECEDENTED INVESTMENTS IN OUR INFRASTRUCTURE TO BOLSTER THE COMPETITIVENESS OF THE MIDDLE CLASSOur nation’s infrastructure is literally crumbling. It is unacceptable that one in five miles of our highways are in “poor condition,” that tens of millions of Americans lack access to high-speed broadband, and that our public schools have repeatedly earned a D+ grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers. We are the world’s richest nation, but rank just 10th in the overall quality of our infrastructure, according to the World Economic Forum.During his 2016 presidential campaign, President Trump said he’d change that. He has been promising an infrastructure plan since his earliest days in office and keeps holding “Infrastructure Weeks”—but has failed to actually deliver results. Instead, Trump has focused on privatizing construction projects to benefit his wealthy friends, leaving communities across the country suffering and our nation falling behind.Biden will revitalize America’s infrastructure and make us more competitive with the rest of the world, while also creating and sustaining quality, middle-class jobs at home. Every one of Biden’s investments in infrastructure will further the following three goals:Create good, union jobs that expand the middle class. American workers should build American infrastructure and manufacture all the materials that go into it, and all of these workers must have the option to join a union and collectively bargain. Building on his plan to strengthen worker organizing, collective bargaining, and unions, President Biden will propose infrastructure legislation that incorporates labor provisions contained in Senator Merkley’s Good Jobs for 21st Century Energy Act, adopting all basic labor protections, ensuring that all investments meet Davis-Bacon wage guidelines, and banning anti-worker provisions like forced arbitration and the overuse of temporary staffing agencies. He will require federally funded projects to source materials in the U.S., to employ workers trained in registered apprenticeship programs, and to prioritize Project Labor and Community Workforce Agreements in federal procurement procedures. Biden’s proposal will make sure that national infrastructure investments create millions of middle-class jobs, benefiting union and non-union workers across industries.Build resilient infrastructure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We’ve already felt the devastating impacts of climate change—from raging wildfires to more frequent and more severe hurricanes to unprecedented floods. Every federal dollar spent on rebuilding our infrastructure during the Biden Administration will be used to prevent, reduce, and withstand the impacts of this climate crisis. If we transform our modes of transportation and the sources of energy that power them, we can make real progress toward reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. For that reason, Biden will invest in expanded public transit systems, giving more Americans an affordable, efficient way to get around without their cars. He will help state and local governments plan for the widespread adoption of electric cars, and will coordinate and invest in the construction of a national electric-vehicle charging network to power them. Biden will also push to build a national high-speed rail network; to accelerate the development of low-carbon aviation and shipping technology; and to fortify our infrastructure to withstand the effects of climate change. And, he will give homeowners and businesses new incentives to retrofit their buildings to reduce their carbon footprints. Across these efforts, Biden will also work with state and local governments and the private sector to modernize our nation’s electric grid, making it smarter, more resilient, and ready to meet the changing needs of a net-zero greenhouse-gas-emissions economy. The impacts of climate change will continue to vary by region, and the people living in each area must be part of developing the solutions to best address their unique challenges.Revitalize communities in every corner of the country so that no one is left behind. Whether in our biggest cities or our smallest towns, too many low-income communities are bearing the brunt of our nation’s decaying infrastructure. Biden will boost federal investments in those neighborhoods to ensure that every American has access to clean drinking water, well-paved roads, high-speed broadband, safe schools, and affordable housing.TRANSPORTATIONHighways, Roads, & BridgesJump-start the repair of our highways, roads, and bridges. Almost 20% of our roads are in poor condition, and there is a backlog of hundreds of billions of dollars of investment. Americans in cities lose more than 8.8 billion hours to traffic each year—an average 54 hours a year per commuter. Biden will propose to immediately spend $50 billion over the first year of his Administration to kickstart the process of repairing our existing roads, highways, and bridges. In addition to sending these funds to states, some of the dollars will go directly to cities and towns that own and run most of our roads. Biden will also expedite permitting, so that projects can break ground faster.Make American roads the world’s safest. The federal government must lead the way in making our streets and highways safer. Under President Biden, the U.S. Department of Transportation will work with cities around the country to build “complete streets,” designed to help drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, and others safely share the road. Biden will also work with Congress to increase federal funding for key safety initiatives like the Highway Safety Improvement Program; and to encourage state and local governments to explore new technologies that can reduce accidents, including “smart” pavement, vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, connected intersections, and other infrastructure-related innovations.Invest in historically marginalized communities and bring everyone to the table for transportation planning. Biden’s pledge to bring Americans together will be reflected in his Administration’s approach to infrastructure. Not only will he make unprecedented investments in rebuilding and connecting historically underserved areas to better transportation options, he will make sure that our highway, road, transit, and air systems never again divide us. As president, Biden will emphasize a robust public engagement process in planning all new transportation projects. He will create a new Community Restoration Fund, specifically for neighborhoods where historic transportation investments cut people off from jobs, schools, and businesses. And, he will work to make sure towns and cities directly receive a portion of existing federal transportation investments.Pair new infrastructure investments with new training programs. To help develop the workforce that will build the new backbone of our country, Biden will work with Congress and the U.S. Department of Labor to fund new Apprenticeship Readiness Programs that specifically target veterans, women, and communities of color to enter the construction trades and that are connected to Registered Apprenticeships. Additionally, Biden will work to further support community colleges that have articulation agreements with Registered Apprenticeship Programs. This, in conjunction with promoting Project Labor and Community Workforce Agreements, will ensure that infrastructure investments are paired with public and private investments in Pre-Apprenticeship training and other recruitment strategies that support the Registered Apprenticeship system, promote meaningful construction careers, and will ensure that the benefits of these investments are broadly shared. This effort will also develop a diverse and local workforce that will strengthen communities as we rebuild our physical infrastructure.Stabilize the Highway Trust Fund. The Highway Trust Fund has for far too long been grossly underfunded. Biden will ensure new revenues are secured to stabilize the Highway Trust Fund in order to build roads, bridges, and public transportation projects.Speed the Transition to Low- and No-Carbon VehiclesSpeed the transition to electric vehicles. Even with major investments in transit and planning, many Americans will still depend on their cars and trucks. To reach net-zero emissions, we have to make it much easier for them to own and use electric vehicles. Biden will work to remove today’s biggest barriers to their use, easing concerns about price, range, and access to charging stations. As president, he will restore the full electric-vehicle tax credit, to encourage American families to buy electric cars for their personal use – and to incentivize American businesses to build or shift their existing fleets to electric vehicles. He will also ensure that the U.S. Department of Energy invests $5 billion over five years in battery and energy storage technology, to spur breakthroughs that can boost the range and slash the price of electric cars. And, he will enact policies to promote domestic manufacturing of electric vehicles. Biden will also work with Congress, the private sector, labor unions, mayors, and governors to build a national electric charging system of 500,000 public charging outlets, so that by 2030, Americans will be able to drive anywhere in the United States in an electric car. Under his Administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation will also provide an additional $1 billion per year in new grants to ensure that those charging stations are installed by certified technicians, promoting high-paying jobs and benefits. Finally, Biden will convene the U.S. Departments of Energy and Transportation to coordinate on special demonstration projects, for example testing new highways that can charge electric cars while in transit. The Departments will provide grants to cities, towns, and counties that are open to piloting new kinds of charging infrastructure, building on programs like the Department of Energy’s Transportation Electrification Project and Clean Cities Initiative, which Biden oversaw as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.Launch a new generation of low-carbon trucking, shipping, and aviation technologies. Long-haul trucking, oceanic shipping, and global aviation also contribute heavily to transit emissions. As part of Biden’s plan to invest $400 billion over 10 years in clean energy research and innovation, his administration will develop a federal research program focused on further reducing the cost of biofuels; increasing their energy density; and developing more efficient engines that can power long-haul trucks, planes, and ships, to keep global commerce moving while reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. In addition, the Biden Administration will work with the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Maritime Organization to share those technologies with other nations.RailSpark the second great railroad revolution. Two centuries ago, the first great railroad expansion drove our industrial revolution. Today, the U.S. is lagging behind Europe and China in rail safety and speed. A 21st-century passenger rail system that connects people across our nation is essential to our competitiveness, to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and to giving more Americans the freedom and flexibility to travel. Biden will make sure that America has the cleanest, safest, and fastest rail system in the world—for both passengers and freight. As president, he will invest in high-speed rail. He’ll start by putting the Northeast Corridor on higher speeds and shrinking the travel time from D.C. to New York by half – and build in conjunction with it a new, safer Hudson River Tunnel. He will make progress toward the completion of the California High Speed Rail project. He will expand the Northeast Corridor to the fast-growing South. Across the Midwest and the Great West, he will begin the construction of an end-to-end high speed rail system that will connect the coasts, unlocking new, affordable access for every American. A Biden Administration will also support freight projects, including a truck and rail-transit bridge linking Oregon to Washington State, and Chicago’s CREATE project, which has the potential to halve transit times for goods moving across the country. Overall, Biden’s rail revolution will reduce pollution, connect workers to good jobs, slash commute times, and spur investment in communities that will now be better linked to major metropolitan areas. To speed that work, Biden will tap existing federal grant and loan programs at the U.S. Department of Transportation, and improve and streamline the loan process.Electrify the rail system. As president, Biden will work with Amtrak and private freight rail companies to further electrify the rail system, reducing diesel fuel emissions.Transit and Regional PlanningOffer tens of millions of Americans new transportation options. Outside major cities, most Americans do not have access to high-quality, reliable public transportation; and within urban areas, it’s often in need of repair. As a result, workers and families rely on cars, which can be a big financial burden, clog roadways, and – along with light-duty trucks – significantly increase U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. As president, Biden will aim to provide all Americans in municipalities of more than 100,000 people with quality public transportation by 2030. To that end, he’ll increase flexible federal investments, helping cities and towns to install light rail networks and to improve existing transit and bus lines. He’ll also help them to invest in infrastructure for pedestrians, cyclists, and riders of e-scooters and other micro-mobility vehicles. And, Biden will work to make sure that new, fast-growing areas are designed and built with public transit in mind. Specifically, he will create a new program that gives rapidly expanding communities the resources to build in public transit options from the start.Reduce congestion by working with metropolitan regions to plan smarter growth. Biden will empower city, county, regional, and state leaders to explore new, smarter, climate-friendly strategies to help reduce average commute times and build more vibrant main streets. Specifically, Biden will create a competitive grant program to help leaders rethink and redesign regional transportation systems, to get commuters where they are going safer, faster, and more efficiently. At the same time, Biden will boost highway funding by 10%, and allocate the new funding to states that embrace smart climate design and pollution reduction, incentivizing them to invest in greenhouse gas reduction. States will also be free to use existing highway funding for alternative transportation options.Connect workers to jobs. For too many low-income workers, the cost of transportation and time it takes them to commute to work every day are significant barriers. As president, Biden will dedicate an additional $10 billion over 10 years specifically for transit projects that serve high-poverty areas with limited transportation options, so that workers seeking a better life won’t have to spend as much getting to their jobs.Smart CitiesEncourage innovation and launch smarter cities. Transportation patterns are changing across the country. New modes of car ownership, the explosive growth of ride-hailing and ride-sharing services, and the rapid adoption of electric scooters and bike-share programs are giving Americans new ways to move. But the biggest disruption lies ahead: self-driving cars. Citizens will benefit if cities can adapt to those new technologies – for example, by reshaping streets to protect cyclists and scooters, connecting transit systems to last-mile solutions like ride-shares and e-scooters, or using real-time data to manage traffic flows. As president, Biden will build on the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge by launching a yearly $1 billion competitive grant program to help five cities pilot new planning strategies and smart-city technologies that can serve as models for the country. Biden will also direct the Department to work with labor unions to develop a plan to help workers impacted by this automation find high-paying, quality jobs.AviationMake our airports the best in the world. Aviation and airports are major drivers for the U.S. economy, but our airports are in desperate need of improvement. As president, Biden will double funding for airports through the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Airport Improvement Program, and launch a new competitive grant program for major airport renovation projects. At the same time, he’ll also make sure that the U.S. maintains the world’s safest aviation system, working with the FAA to fully implement its NextGen technology system, to improve safety, modernize our airspace, and reduce delays and cancellations. Biden will also ensure that U.S. airlines’ operating, repair, and maintenance facilities overseas adhere to our nation’s highest safety standards.FreightInvest in freight infrastructure, including inland waterways, freight corridors, freight rail, transfer facilities, and ports. From early-19th century canals, to late-19th century railroads, to 20th-century highways, innovations in transportation infrastructure have powered our economy, carrying the freight that drives our nation forward. Today, though, our freight system is especially outdated. Freight railroads run through 100-year-old tunnels too small for the shipping containers they should be carrying. Highways and bridges buckle under trucks’ weight, and many ports are too shallow for modern shipping vessels. As president, Biden will change that. He will roughly double funding for key competitive grant programs – like the Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Transportation Discretionary Grants program (formerly known as Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery, or TIGER) and Infrastructure For Rebuilding America (INFRA) – from $1.8 billion to $3.5 billion a year. These programs leverage local, state, and private investment, and create innovative transportation models that can be replicated nationwide. Biden will also work closely with American manufacturers to prioritize investments that will improve supply chains and distribution, reduce shipping costs, and boost U.S. exports. And he will also increase funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by $2.5 billion per year, supporting infrastructure projects to keep goods moving quickly through our ports and waterways. This will include increased federal funding for lock modernization projects on inland waterways.Support American port infrastructure. Biden will ensure that all fees collected for the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund are used to improve and rebuild American ports of entry. And he’ll work with U.S. ports and labor unions to ensure that cargo bound for the U.S. is offloaded in the U.S., and not in Canadian ports to avoid harbor taxes.RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTUREInvest in the resiliency of our infrastructure. Communities around the country are already experiencing the impact of climate change. While the Trump Administration has abdicated global climate leadership, America’s mayors and other local leaders have stepped up to build smarter cities that can withstand storms, floods, heat, wildfires, sea level rise, and more. A Biden Administration will give those communities a true partner in the White House again, advancing their efforts and helping to create new, well-paying jobs to improve climate resiliency and invest in our economic future. As president, Biden will convene top innovators to help design common-sense zoning and building codes, and to help communities build and rebuild before and after natural disasters and other shocks and stresses. Biden will also invest in and help train people for well-paying jobs in climate resiliency industries. These include coastal restoration, resilient infrastructure design, construction and evaluation (for example, building bridges to withstand high winds and roads that don’t wash out during floods), natural solutions (for example, planting trees on a large scale to combat urban heat and its negative health impacts), and technological solutions. These industries have been shown to improve communities’ resilience – and they’re all opportunities for job creation and economic growth.ENERGYInvest in energy infrastructure for a 100% clean energy economy. The transition to a clean energy economy won’t just require new technologies and vehicles, it will entail a major expansion of renewable energy production and a dramatic evolution of our electric grid – not only reducing emissions, but creating millions of new jobs. As president, Biden will partner with utilities and regulators around the country to build a 21st-century power grid, able to distribute clean energy reliably and safely to households and businesses across the United States. Specifically, he will appoint commissioners to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who will drive market reforms, like expanding regional electric markets, integrating renewables, building in demand-response, and promoting long-term infrastructure planning to achieve a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero emissions by 2050. The Biden Administration will also work with cities, states, and utilities to install advanced metering equipment; to deploy electric vehicle charging infrastructure; and to upgrade transmission lines to support larger regional electric markets that can distribute renewably-generated electricity from the point of generation to end users. Finally, Biden will work with the U.S. Department of Energy to advance large-scale storage demonstration projects, including pilots that use electric vehicles as mobile energy storage units.Make our buildings more energy efficient. As president, Biden will work with Congress to electrify the building sector and increase energy efficiency in a range of ways. For homeowners, he’ll reinstate tax credits for residential energy efficiency. For businesses, he’ll expand tax deductions for energy retrofits, smart metering systems, and other emissions-reducing investments in commercial buildings. His administration will also boost investment in low-income weatherization programs and in key technologies like electric heat pumps; and it will work with local and state governments and the private sector to expand the utilization of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE). Biden will also reinstate the solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC), slated to expire in two years; and will construct net-zero-carbon federal buildings, to serve as a model for state and local governments and the private sector.WATERReplace aging pipes and invest in water infrastructure so every American has clean drinking water. Americans deserve clean, reliable drinking water in their homes. But across the country, pipes and treatment plants are aging into obsolescence, and in places like Flint, Michigan, Merrimack, New Hampshire, and Martin County, Kentucky, drinking water is endangering public health. Biden will double federal investments in clean drinking water and water infrastructure, and focus new funding on low-income rural, suburban, and urban areas that are struggling to replace pipes and treatment facilities – and especially on communities at high risk of lead or other kinds of contamination. In addition, Biden will reduce the matching funds required of local governments that don’t have the taxbase to be able to afford borrowing to repair their water systems.Monitor for lead and other contaminants and hold polluters accountable. As president, Biden will require state and local governments to monitor their water systems for lead and other contaminants, and he will provide them with the resources to do so. Biden will also work with the EPA and the Justice Department to hold companies that pollute our waterways accountable, aggressively enforcing existing regulations and prosecuting any violations. Corporations and their executives cannot break the law and expect to get away with it.Invest in water technology. New technologies present real opportunities to use existing water resources more efficiently, and to reduce the cost and energy required to generate new water supplies, for example through desalination. As president, Biden will increase federal funding for water technology research and use the convening power of the White House to spur private-sector innovation.BROADBANDBring broadband to every American household. In a 21st century economy, Americans need broadband. Without it, students face substantial barriers to doing their homework and the sick and elderly can’t access remote health care. Broadband is a prerequisite for starting a business, working remotely, accessing government resources, and engaging in public debate. But today, more than 21 million Americans still don’t have broadband; and many more can’t afford it. This “digital divide” is particularly wide for low-income, older, and rural Americans, as well as for Americans living on tribal lands. As president, Biden will close the digital divide. First, he will invest $20 billion in rural broadband infrastructure; and triple funding to expand broadband access in rural areas, and to ensure that the work of installing broadband provides high-paying jobs with benefits. Biden will also direct the federal government – especially the U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture – to support cities and towns that want to build municipally-owned broadband networks. He will encourage competition among providers, to increase speeds and decrease prices in urban, suburban, and rural areas. And to encourage those providers to invest in further extending service to rural communities and tribal areas, Biden will make available key federally-controlled telecom resources, like towers, poles, and rights-of-way. Biden will also work with the FCC to reform its Lifeline program, increasing the number of participating broadband providers, reducing fraud and abuse, and ultimately offering more low-income Americans the subsidies needed to access high-speed internet. Finally, Biden will work with Congress to pass the Digital Equity Act, to help communities tackle the digital divide.SCHOOLSInvest $100 billion to modernize our nation’s schools. American public school facilities received a grade of D+ from the American Society of Civil Engineers. In fact, each year the U.S. underfunds school infrastructure by $46 billion, resulting in schools that are outdated, unsafe, unfit, and – in some cases – making kids and educators sick. In line with the Rebuild America’s Schools Act, backed by the House Education Committee, President Biden will invest $100 billion in improving public school buildings. First and foremost, those funds will be used to address health risks, so that going to school or working at one never makes anyone sick. Additional funds will be used to build cutting-edge, energy-efficient, innovative schools, with technology and labs to prepare our students for the jobs of the future.Build Transformational ProjectsHistorically, major infrastructure projects, from the Erie Canal to the Hoover Dam, reshaped not just a single town or city, but a whole region of our country. These projects – and their benefits – often extend across state lines, making them hard for any one state government to plan, fund, or execute. That’s why Biden is proposing a new $40 billion, 10-year Transformational Projects Fund, to provide significant discretionary grants for projects too large and complex to be funded through existing infrastructure programs. The grants will be available for transportation, water, and energy projects, with allocations to the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Departments of Transportation, the Interior, and Energy. Projects might include a major new regional transportation system, a major port upgrade, or a new tunnel.In the weeks ahead, Biden will put forward additional policies related to housing.ENSURE GROWTH IS SHARED BY COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE COUNTRYVice President Biden’s plan will spark a renaissance in cities, towns, and communities that have been forgotten for too long. It will attract private capital to all corners of the country, and provide funds for anchor institutions, including new research centers and hospitals. Biden will make critical investments so that every American has a chance to succeed, no matter their zip code.A NATIONAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND JOBS INITIATIVEExpand the New Markets Tax Credit, make the program permanent, and double Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) funding. The New Markets Tax Credit has helped draw tens of billions of dollars in new capital to low-income communities, providing tax credits to investors in community development organizations that support everything from supermarkets to real estate projects to manufacturing plants. Biden will expand the program to provide $5 billion in support every year, and he will make the program permanent so communities can take the credit into account in their long-term planning. As part of his plan to reinvest in communities across the country, including in rural areas, Biden will also double funding for the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, which supports local, mission-driven financial institutions in low-income areas around the U.S. This builds on Biden’s proposal to support entrepreneurs in small towns and rural areas by expanding both the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program and the number of Rural Business Investment Companies, to help rural businesses attract capital.Double funding for the Economic Development Administration, to help underserved communities tap existing federal resources. Billions in federal aid is available for economic development goals like expanding access to broadband, setting up business incubators, and encouraging industry clusters in manufacturing or information technology. But, underserved communities often lack resources to navigate the complex grant application system in the first place. Throughout the Obama-Biden Administration’s work to support the resurgence of places like Detroit, it was clear that helping local leaders apply for federal aid is one of the most important ways to start turning around an economically depressed city. For that reason, Biden will double funding for the Economic Development Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce devoted to economic development, and task it with creating a new division devoted to helping underserved communities apply for federal aid. This initiative complements Biden’s proposal for a new White House “StrikeForce” to assist rural communities in persistent poverty, and will help to ensure that every community can seek and receive the federal resources it needs to build a more prosperous economy.Create a new Cities Revitalization Fund. Our nation must recommit to revitalizing American cities. As president, Biden will launch a new, $10 billion fund, coordinated through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and focused on creative revitalization projects in distressed cities – like redeveloping post-industrial waterfronts, energizing main street business districts, rehabbing public markets, and building new green public spaces. These communities have missed out on both private capital and necessary government funding for far too long. Under a Biden Administration, they will get the investment they need and deserve.Fund anchor institutions in distressed areas. For many communities across the United States, anchor institutions serve as long-standing contributors to economic vitality. These institutions – which include hospitals, colleges and universities, and government administrative offices – can help to provide a reliable source of income and good-paying jobs, even in times of economic downturns; and can support small businesses and middle-class workers. Unfortunately, many communities have no viable anchor institution and miss out on the related economic and social benefits. Biden will create a new fund to support the establishment and revitalization of anchor institutions, with a competitive process to ensure that the most deserving communities win investment.Fully Implement Congressman Clyburn’s 10-20-30 PlanTo tackle persistent poverty in all communities, in both urban and rural America, Vice President Biden supports applying Congressman James Clyburn’s 10-20-30 formula to all federal programs. The formula would allocate 10% of funding to counties “where 20% or more of the population has been living below the poverty line for the last 30 years.”REVITALIZE MANUFACTURING ACROSS THE COUNTRYQuadruple funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. America’s small manufacturers need help. On the heels of the Trump Administration’s reckless trade wars, our country’s manufacturing sector has been thrown into a full-blown recession. Righting American manufacturing will require smarter, less erratic trade policies – but it also begins with giving small manufacturers the tools they need to succeed. One lifeline for thousands of them is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a program designed to provide small manufacturers with the technical expertise needed to compete in a global economy. While President Trump proposed fully cutting this program, Biden will quadruple its funding, to ensure that more small manufacturers can access the technical and business support it provides.Enact a national strategy to develop a low-carbon manufacturing sector in every state, boosting access to new technologies and skills, and helping small and large manufacturers upgrade their capabilities to have both competitive and low-carbon futures. This strategy will connect research universities, community colleges, incubators, manufacturing institutes, employers, unions, and state and local governments – alone or as part of a regional pact – and provide them with significant funding for a place-based plan to build a competitive, localized, low-carbon future in manufacturing. Industries ranging from textiles and machine tools, to metal fabrication or the most advanced manufacturing technologies, will be eligible for funding; and will be motivated to modernize, compete, create jobs, and move to a clean energy future. Allocated tax credits and subsidies will help businesses to upgrade equipment and processes, to invest in expanded or new factories, and to deploy low-carbon technologies – as long as all community stakeholders are included in the process. In cases where states feel that competitive pressures or climate change-related requirements may harm a local economy, Biden’s strategy will preemptively fund a more competitive or low-carbon manufacturing approach. Those preemptive efforts may include new economic strategies, or new federal funding for technology or manufacturing innovation centers. That support can particularly help green economy manufacturers, whether producing batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage, solar panels, or other advanced equipment; and it can also incentivize small manufacturers to use American-made materials, such as iron, steel, and intermediate manufactured products, in their production processes.Establish a Manufacturing Communities Tax Credit. The Obama-Biden Administration proposed a $6 billion, three-year initiative to invest in communities that experienced mass layoffs or the closure of a major government institution. As president, Biden will adopt and expand this initiative, providing five years of funding for projects that boost local economic growth.SPARK ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SMALL BUSINESS GROWTH IN EVERY COMMUNITYDouble down on the State Small Business Credit Initiative. In 2010, the Obama-Biden Administration created the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) to support small businesses. The program transfers funds to state small business lending initiatives, driving $10 billion in new lending for each $1 billion in SSBCI funds. Biden will extend the program through 2025 and double its federal funding to $3 billion, driving close to $30 billion of private sector investments to small businesses all told, especially those owned by women and people of color.Establish a competitive grant program for new business startups outside of our biggest cities. To help redirect investments to more communities across the country – not just our biggest cities – Biden will enact legislation to provide $5 billion in funding to states with policies to encourage small business startups, for example by supporting the transfer of technology from public universities to the private sector, or by implementing training programs for new entrepreneurs.JOE BIDEN: STEADY STEWARD OF THE BIGGEST INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT IN GENERATIONSAs Vice President, Biden oversaw the execution of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which poured more than $800 billion into infrastructure and stimulus spending, bringing the country back from the brink of depression.Biden made sure that taxpayer dollars were well spent, with less than 0.2% of awards generating investigations of fraud.Investing in Middle Class Competitiveness, Not Rewarding WealthEvery cent of Joe Biden’s $1.3 trillion investment in our nation’s infrastructure will be paid for by making sure the super-wealthy and corporations pay their fair share. Specifically, this investment will be offset by revenue raised through reversing the excesses of the Trump tax cuts for corporations; reducing incentives for tax havens, evasion, and outsourcing; ensuring corporations pay their fair share; closing other loopholes in our tax code that reward wealth, not work; and ending subsidies for fossil fuels.THE BIDEN PLAN FOR STRENGTHENING WORKER ORGANIZING, COLLECTIVE BARGAINING, AND UNIONS – Joe Biden for PresidentStrong unions built the great American middle class. Everything that defines what it means to live a good life and know you can take care of your family – the 40 hour work week, paid leave, health care protections, a voice in your workplace – is because of workers who organized unions and fought for worker protections. Because of organizing and collective bargaining, there used to be a basic bargain between workers and their employers in this country that when you work hard, you share in the prosperity your work created.Today, however, there’s a war on organizing, collective bargaining, unions, and workers. It’s been raging for decades, and it’s getting worse with Donald Trump in the White House. Republican governors and state legislatures across the country have advanced anti-worker legislation to undercut the labor movement and collective bargaining. States have decimated the rights of public sector workers who, unlike private sector workers, do not have federal protections ensuring their freedom to organize and collectively bargain. In the private sector, corporations are using profits to buy back their own shares and increase CEOs’ compensation instead of investing in their workers and creating more good-quality jobs. The results have been predictable: rising income inequality, stagnant real wages, the loss of pensions, exploitation of workers, and a weakening of workers’ voices in our society.Biden is proposing a plan to grow a stronger, more inclusive middle class – the backbone of the American economy – by strengthening public and private sector unions and helping all workers bargain successfully for what they deserve.As president, Biden will:Check the abuse of corporate power over labor and hold corporate executives personally accountable for violations of labor laws;Encourage and incentivize unionization and collective bargaining; andEnsure that workers are treated with dignity and receive the pay, benefits, and workplace protections they deserve.This plan is a critical addition to Biden’s proposals to ensure all workers have access to quality, affordable health care; to guarantee all workers are able to send their children to quality public schools and have access to universal pre-kindergarten; to provide education and training beyond high school, including federally Registered Apprenticeships; to support a clean energy revolution that creates millions of unionized middle-class jobs; and to meet our commitment to invest first in American workers and ensure that labor is at the table to negotiate every trade deal. In the months ahead, Biden will continue to outline in further detail his related proposals, including on issues related to pensions, starting with passing the Butch Lewis Act; infrastructure investments and project labor agreements; and workplace equality.CHECK THE ABUSE OF CORPORATE POWER OVER LABORPresident Trump and Republican leadership think this country was built by CEOs and hedge fund managers, but they’re wrong. Joe Biden knows that our country was built by hard-working Americans. While we could survive without Wall Street and investment banks, our entire economy would collapse without electricians to keep our lights on, auto workers on the line building our cars, drivers who deliver all things we need for our daily lives to our markets, firefighters, ambulance drivers, service workers, educators, and millions more.Yet employers steal about $15 billion a year from working people just by paying workers less than the minimum wage. On top of that, workers experience huge losses in salary caused by other forms of wage theft, like employers not paying overtime, forcing off-the-clock work, and misclassifying workers. At the same time, these companies are raking in billions of dollars in profits and paying CEOs tens and hundreds of millions of dollars.In addition, employers repeatedly interfere with workers’ efforts to organize and collectively bargain. In nearly all union campaigns, corporations run a campaign against the union. Three in four employers hire anti-union consultants, spending approximately $1 billion each year on these efforts. Corporations fire pro-union workers in one of every three union campaigns and about half of corporations threaten to retaliate against workers during union campaigns. Even workers who successfully are able to form a union are later impeded by corporations who bargain in bad faith. About half of newly organized groups of workers do not have a contract a year later and one in three remain without a contract two years after a successful union election.Biden will ensure employers respect workers’ rights. Specifically, he will:Hold corporations and executives personally accountable for interfering with organizing efforts and violating other labor laws. Biden strongly supports the Protecting the Right to Organize Act’s (PRO Act) provisions instituting financial penalties on companies that interfere with workers’ organizing efforts, including firing or otherwise retaliating against workers. Biden will go beyond the PRO Act by enacting legislation to impose even stiffer penalties on corporations and to hold company executives personally liable when they interfere with organizing efforts, including criminally liable when their interference is intentional.Aggressively pursue employers who violate labor laws, participate in wage theft, or cheat on their taxes by intentionally misclassifying employees as independent contractors. As president, Biden will put a stop to employers intentionally misclassifying their employees as independent contractors. He will enact legislation that makes worker misclassification a substantive violation of law under all federal labor, employment, and tax laws with additional penalties beyond those imposed for other violations. And, he will build on efforts by the Obama-Biden Administration to drive an aggressive, all-hands-on-deck enforcement effort that will dramatically reduce worker misclassification. He will direct the U.S. Department of Labor to engage in meaningful, collaborative enforcement partnerships, including with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, the Justice Department, and state tax, unemployment insurance, and labor agencies. And, while Trump has weakened enforcement by sabotaging the enforcement agencies and slashing their investigator corps, Biden will fund a dramatic increase in the number of investigators in labor and employment enforcement agencies to facilitate a large anti-misclassification effort.Ensure federal dollars do not flow to employers who engage in union-busting activities, participate in wage theft, or violate labor law. Biden will institute a multi-year federal debarment for all employers who illegally oppose unions, building on debarment efforts pursued in the Obama-Biden Administration. Biden will also restore and build on the Obama-Biden Administration’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order, which Trump revoked, requiring employers’ compliance with labor and employment laws be taken into account in determining whether they are sufficiently responsible to be entrusted with federal contracts. He will ensure federal contracts only go to employers who sign neutrality agreements committing not to run anti-union campaigns. He also will only award contracts to employers who support their workers, including those who pay a $15 per hour minimum wage and family sustaining benefits. The tax dollars of hard-working families should not be used to damage the standard of living of those same families.Penalize companies that bargain in bad faith. Too many employers pretend to bargain with unions (“surface bargaining”) with no intent of reaching an agreement. Biden will give the NLRB the necessary power to force any employer found to be bargaining in bad faith back to the negotiating table, as called for in the PRO Act. And, he will require those companies to pay a penalty, in addition to making workers whole for the time the company stalled negotiations.ENCOURAGE AND INCENTIVIZE UNION ORGANIZING AND COLLECTIVE BARGAININGUnions and collective bargaining are essential tools for growing and sustaining a stronger, more inclusive middle class. 16 million workers in the United States are union members or are in a job that provides them union representation. More than six in ten of those individuals are women and/or people of color. Union workers earn roughly 13% more than non-union workers on a similar job site. They also experience drastically lower rates of labor standards violations, like employers engaging in wage theft or failing to meet safety and health requirements.But today, union members make up just 10.5% of the American workforce. That’s down from 35% in the 1950s. It is no coincidence that this decline has occurred at the same time as rising income inequality. When workers are blocked from organizing and engaging in collective bargaining, stagnant wages and a declining middle class are the predictable result.Joe Biden believes the federal government should not only defend workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively, but also encourage collective bargaining. That’s the mission put forward by the National Labor Relations Act, signed into law in 1935, which states that “encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining” is part of the “policy of the United States.”Toward that end, President Biden will:Make it easier for workers who choose to unionize to do so. Today, workers face an uphill battle of anti-union intimidation and intense employer opposition when trying to organize a union. And, too many employers are able to “run out the clock” on negotiating an initial collective bargaining agreement. Biden strongly supports the provisions of the PRO Act that address union organizing, as well as additional aggressive remedies that will:ban employers’ mandatory meetings with their employees, including captive audience meetings in which employees are forced to listen to anti-union rhetoric;reinstate and codify into law the Obama-Biden Administration’s “persuader rule” requiring employers to report not only information communicated to employees, but also the activities of third-party consultants who work behind the scenes to manage employers’ anti-union campaigns;codify into law the Obama-Biden era’s NLRB rules allowing for shortened timelines of union election campaigns; andstop employers from stalling initial negotiations with newly formed unions.A co-sponsor of the original Employee Free Choice Act, Biden supports workers choosing to form a union if a majority signs authorization cards empowering a union to represent them. He will go beyond the PRO Act by allowing workers to use this process, called “card check,” as an initial option for forming a union, not merely an option granted when the employer has illegally interfered in the election process.Provide a federal guarantee for public sector employees to bargain for better pay and benefits and the working conditions they deserve. Public sector unions provide the voice that workers – including educators, social workers, firefighters, and police officers – need to ensure they can serve their communities. And, public sector unions have been and continue to be an essential pathway to the middle class for workers of color and women, who disproportionately work in the public sector. Yet, in many states across the country, public sector workers do not have the right to bargain collectively. In states such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, and Indiana, these rights are increasingly under attack. As president, Biden will establish a federal right to union organizing and collective bargaining for all public sector employees, and make it easier for those employees who serve our communities to both join a union and bargain. He will do so by fighting for and signing into law the Public Safety Employer Employee Cooperation Act and Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act. He will work to ensure public sector workers, including public school educators, have a greater voice in the decisions that impact their students and their working conditions. He will also strongly encourage states to pursue expanded bargaining rights for state licensed and contracted workers, including child care workers and home health care workers. And, he will look for federal solutions that will protect these workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively. Finally, he will reinstate the Obama-Biden rule, which the Trump Administration has since reversed, making it easier for independent-provider home care workers to join a union.Ban state laws prohibiting unions from collecting dues or comparable payments from all workers who benefit from union representation that unions are legally obligated to provide. Currently more than half of all states have in place these so-called “right to work” laws, which in fact deprive workers of their rights. These laws exist only to deprive unions of the financial support they need to fight for higher wages and better benefits. As president, Biden will repeal the Taft-Hartley provisions that allow states to impose “right to work” laws.Create a cabinet-level working group that will solely focus on promoting union organizing and collective bargaining in the public and private sectors. As president, Biden will create a cabinet-level working group that includes representatives from labor. In the first 100 days of the Administration, the working group will deliver a plan to dramatically increase union density and address economic inequality. The group will consider whether there are very specific areas where the federal government could waive preemption of the National Labor Relations Act to allow cities and states to pursue innovative ways to increase union organizing and collective bargaining without undermining current workers protections, like allowing for neutrality agreements and card check. The group will also be tasked with working with unions and trade associations to further explore the expansion of sectoral bargaining, where all competitors in an industry are engaged in collective bargaining with a single or multiple unions.Ensure workers can bargain with the employer that actually holds the power, including franchisors, and ensure those employers are accountable for guaranteeing workplace protections. During the Obama-Biden Administration, the NLRB issued the landmark Browning-Ferris Industries decision. If allowed to stand, this decision would allow unions to collectively bargain with the employer that actually controls their wages, benefits and working conditions — which is often not the staffing agency or the franchisee, but a large corporation or franchisor like McDonald’s. The Trump Administration and Trump’s handpicked NLRB majority proposed reversing this decision. As president, Biden will enact legislation codifying the Browning-Ferris Industries joint employer definition into law, as called for in the PRO Act, and restoring the broad definition of joint employment to wage and hour law.Ensure that workers can exercise their right to strike without fear of reprisal. The right of workers to withhold their labor, or to strike, is fundamental to balancing power in the workplace. But too many workers risk reprisal, punishment, or termination when they seek to bring pressure on employers by participating in strikes, picket lines, and boycotts. Low wage workers face especially high barriers to exercising their right to strike. They often have too few resources to sustain long strikes, and instead require short, periodic strikes, or “intermittent strikes,” to be able to bring pressure to their employer. Under current law, these types of strikes are not sufficiently protected. And, because low-wage workers often do not have specialized skills, they are more often “permanently replaced” – or functionally fired – while striking. Workers are also often limited in the pressure they can exert on employers because of restrictions on boycotting “secondary” businesses that have influence over their employer. These secondary boycotts are essential for promoting workers’ voice. For example, after tomato growers unsuccessfully led strikes of their employer at the turn of the century, they successfully boycotted Taco Bell and other fast-food giants who bought the tomatoes to gain better wages and working conditions. Biden has supported secondary boycotts since he entered public service, and has long supported banning “permanent replacement” of workers. As president, Biden will fight for passage of the PRO Act to protect intermittent strikes, ban permanent strike replacements, and remove the ill-conceived ban on secondary boycotts once and for all.Empower the National Labor Relations Board to fulfill its intended purpose of protecting workers. Congress created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to encourage union organizing, support collective bargaining, and protect workers’ rights. The Obama-Biden Administration appointed officials to the NLRB who supported workers’ right to organize and collective bargain, and made critically important decisions such as ensuring that workers could organize in micro-units. Trump has undermined this progress and the intent of the NLRB by appointing board members with long histories of anti-union activities. As president, Biden will appoint members to the NLRB who will protect, rather than sabotage, worker organizing, collective bargaining, and workers’ rights to engage in concerted activity whether or not they belong to a union.Reinstate and expand protections for federal employees. The federal government should serve as a role model for employers to treat their workers fairly. Yet, Trump has gutted the ability of federal employees to collectively bargain, stripped them of their union representation, and made it easier to fire federal employees without “just cause.” On Biden’s first day in office, he will restore federal employees’ rights to organize and bargain collectively, and will direct his agencies to bargain with federal employee unions over non-mandatory subjects of bargaining.Expand long overdue rights to farmworkers and domestic workers. When Congress extended labor rights and protections to workers, farmworkers and domestic workers – who are disproportionately immigrants and people of color – were left out. Still today, millions of these workers are not fully protected under federal labor law. As president, Biden will support legislation, including the Fairness for Farmworkers Act and Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, that expands federal protections to agricultural and domestic workers, ensuring that they too have the right to basic workplace protections and to organize and collectively bargain. And, through the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, Biden will ensure domestic workers have a voice in the workplace through a wage and standards board.Extend the right to organize and bargain collectively to independent contractors. Some workers are correctly classified as independent contractors, but are not very different from employees. They bring only their labor, and perhaps a small amount of capital investment, to the organization with which they do business. These workers lack individual bargaining power and, as a result, are at grave risk of exploitation by big business. Biden supports modifying antitrust law and guaranteeing that these independent contractors can organize and bargain collectively for their mutual protection and benefit.ENSURE THAT ALL WORKERS ARE TREATED WITH DIGNITY AND RECEIVE THE PAY, BENEFITS, AND WORKPLACE PROTECTIONS THEY DESERVEDuring the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt ushered in labor protections and established the safety net for a reason. The excesses of business threatened the very fabric of our community in the Roaring Twenties, as children slaved away in factories and workers labored for poverty wages. Basic protections like the minimum wage and overtime pay allowed workers to earn their fair share.But it has been far too long since we have increased those standards. Today’s corporate culture treats workers as a means to an end and institutes policies to suppress wages.As president, Biden will ensure that workers receive the pay and dignity they deserve. He will:Increase the federal minimum wage to $15. As Vice President, Biden helped get state and local laws increasing the minimum wage across the finish line – including in New York State – and has supported eliminating the tipped minimum wage. He firmly believes all Americans are owed a raise, and it’s well past time we increase the federal minimum wage to $15 across the country. This increase would include workers who aren’t currently earning the minimum wage, like the farmworkers who grow our food and domestic workers who care for our aging and sick and for those with disabilities. As president, Biden will also support indexing the minimum wage to the median hourly wage so that low-wage workers’ wages keep up with those of middle income workers.Invest in communities by widely applying and strictly enforcing prevailing wages. The prevailing wage, or the wage earned by the median worker in the same occupation in the same region, is an essential mechanism for securing middle class jobs. Taxpayer dollars should always be used to build the middle class, not to foster wage-cutting competition among employers in the construction or service industries. When President Obama put Vice President Biden in charge of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Biden made sure that Davis-Bacon Act and Service Contract Act standards were strictly enforced, requiring that the prevailing wage be paid to construction workers and service workers on all projects funded by ARRA. As president, Biden will build on this success by ensuring that every federal investment in infrastructure and transportation projects or service jobs is covered by prevailing wage protections.Stop employers from denying workers overtime pay they’ve earned. The Obama-Biden Administration fought to extend overtime pay to over 4 million workers and protect nearly 9 million from losing it. The Trump Administration reversed this progress, implementing a new rule that leaves millions of workers behind. Since Trump walked away from protecting these middle-class workers, they have lost over $2.2 billion in foregone overtime wages. As president, Biden will ensure workers are paid fairly for the long hours they work and get the overtime they have earned.Ensure workers in the “gig economy” and beyond receive the legal benefits and protections they deserve. Employer misclassification of “gig economy” workers as independent contractors deprives these workers of legally mandated benefits and protections. Employers in construction, service industries, and other industries also misclassify millions of their employees as independent contractors to reduce their labor costs at the expense of these workers. This epidemic of misclassification is made possible by ambiguous legal tests that give too much discretion to employers, too little protection to workers, and too little direction to government agencies and courts. States like California have already paved the way by adopting a clearer, simpler, and stronger three-prong “ABC test” to distinguish employees from independent contractors. The ABC test will mean many more workers will get the legal protections and benefits they rightfully should receive. As president, Biden will work with Congress to establish a federal standard modeled on the ABC test for all labor, employment, and tax laws.Eliminate non-compete clauses and no-poaching agreements that hinder the ability of employees to seek higher wages, better benefits, and working conditions by changing employers. In the American economy, companies compete. Workers should be able to compete, too. But at some point in their careers, 40% of American workers have been subject to non-compete clauses. If workers had the freedom to move to another job, they could expect to earn 5% to 10% more – that’s an additional $2,000 to $4,000 for a worker earning $40,000 each year. These employer-driven barriers to competition are even imposed within the same company’s franchisee networks. For example, large franchisors like Jiffy Lube have no-poaching policies preventing any of their franchisees from hiring workers from another franchisee. As president, Biden will work with Congress to eliminate all non-compete agreements, except the very few that are absolutely necessary to protect a narrowly defined category of trade secrets, and outright ban all no-poaching agreements.Put an end to unnecessary occupational licensing requirements. While licensing is important in some occupations to protect consumers, in many occupations licensing does nothing but thwart economic opportunity. If licensed workers choose to move to new states for higher-paying jobs, they often have to get certified all over again. As president, Biden will build on the Obama-Biden Administration’s efforts to incentivize states to reduce unnecessary licensing requirements and to ensure licenses are transferable from one state to the next.Increase workplace safety and health. No one should get sick, injured, or die simply because they went to work. Every worker has the right to return home from work safely. But Trump has attempted to weaken several occupational and safety regulations established during the Obama-Biden Administration. For example, he rolled back regulations requiring companies to report their workplace injuries so they are disclosed to the public. He removed the restrictions on line speeds in pork plants, making meatpacking jobs even more dangerous. He reduced the number of Occupational and Safety Health Administration (OSHA) investigators and safety enforcement efforts, despite the fact that OSHA inspections reduce injuries. As president, Biden will reinstate these critical safety protections and ensure all appointments to committees and advisory boards under OSHA intimately understand the consequences of not having functional safety standards in place. He will direct OSHA to substantially expand its enforcement efforts. He will increase the number of investigators in OSHA and the Mine Safety Health and Administration (MSHA). He will also direct OSHA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, MSHA, and other relevant agencies to develop comprehensive strategies for addressing the most dangerous hazards workers encounter in the modern workplace.Ensure workers can have their day in court by ending mandatory arbitration clauses imposed by employers on workers. Sixty million workers have been forced to sign contracts waiving their rights to sue their employer and nearly 25 million have been forced to waive their right to bring class action lawsuits or joint arbitration. These contracts require employees to use individual, private arbitrations when their employer violates federal and state laws. Biden will enact legislation to ban employers from requiring their employees to agree to mandatory individual arbitration and forcing employees to relinquish their right to class action lawsuits or collective litigation, as called for in the PRO Act.Expand protections for undocumented immigrants who report labor violations. When undocumented immigrants are victims of serious crimes and help in the investigation of those crimes, they become eligible for U Visas. The Obama-Biden Administration expanded the U Visa program to certain workplace crimes. As president, Biden will further extend these protections to victims of any workplace violations of federal, state, or local labor law by securing passage of the POWER Act. And, a Biden Administration will ensure that workers on temporary visas, including guest teachers, are protected so that they are able to exercise the labor rights to which they are entitled.BIDEN HAS STOOD WITH UNIONS AND WORKERS FOR HIS ENTIRE CAREERVice President Biden has stood with and fought for workers again and again. He helped get state and local laws increasing the minimum wage across the finish line – including in New York State. As Vice President, Biden was the loudest elected voice calling out “the most direct assault [on unions] in generations” when governors in states like Wisconsin and Ohio eviscerated the collective bargaining rights of public sector employees. When President Obama put Vice President Biden in charge of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, he ensured construction workers were paid prevailing wages, essential for maintaining middle class jobs. The Recovery Act also played a vital role in saving public sector jobs, including tens of thousands of education jobs. And, Biden secured an expansion of the SAFER Act to keep more firefighters on the job during the Great Recession.The Obama-Biden Administration also took action to make it easier for workers to organize. The Administration increased transparency of employers’ anti-union campaigns and ensured that employers who wanted federal contracts had to comply with labor laws. They supported public sector workers’ ability to organize, including by clarifying that states can deduct union dues from home care workers. And, the Administration appointed a pro-union National Labor Relations Board.Biden’s commitment to fighting for workers and unions is longstanding. As a senator, he was one of the original co-sponsors of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have made it easier for workers to unionize through card-check. Dating back to 1975, he was one of the first champions of secondary boycotts, a critical method workers need to fight for fair working conditions. Both provisions have now gained broad support and are included in congressional Democrats’ Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. As president, Biden will sign the PRO Act into law.

Here are President Obama's top 50 accomplishmentsThe comprehensive legacy of the 44th President.by Paul Glastris and Nancy LeTourneauMAGAZINEIn March 2012, we compiled a list of what were, at the time, President Barack Obama’s greatest achievements, to accompany our cover story, “The Incomplete Greatness of Barack Obama.” Today, at the end of his second term, Obama’s legacy is far more complete. Indeed, items from the original list—such as increasing national service opportunities, creating the Race to the Top education reform program, and expanding stem cell research—fell off in order to make room for new ones.But his legacy is also under threat. Donald Trump and the new Republican-dominated Congress have pledged to undo much of what the president has achieved, including repealing the Affordable Care Act and reversing important executive actions on immigration and climate change. So it is with this caveat that we offer the following updated list of Obama’s top accomplishments.1. Passed Health Care ReformAfter five presidents over the course of a century failed to create universal health insurance, signed the Affordable Care Act in 2010. More than twenty million Americans have gained coverage since the passage of the law, which provides subsidies for Americans to buy coverage, expands Medicaid eligibility, and prohibits insurers from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions. The uninsured rate has dropped from 16 percent in 2010 to 9 percent in 2015. The law also mandates free preventive care, allows young people to stay on their parents’ policies up to age twenty-six, and imposes a ban on annual and lifetime caps on benefits.2. Rescued the EconomySigned the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 to spur economic growth amid the most severe downturn since the Great Depression. As of October 2016, the economy had added 15.5 million new jobs since early 2010 and set a record with seventy-three straight months of private-sector job growth. The unemployment rate, which hit a sustained peak of about 10 percent in 2009, has dropped to 4.6 percent as of November 2016.3. Passed Wall Street ReformSigned the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010 to re-regulate the financial sector after its practices caused the Great Recession. The law tightens capital requirements on large banks and other financial institutions, allows the government to take them into receivership if they pose a threat to the economy, and limits their ability to trade with customers’ money for their own profit. Dodd-Frank also created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to crack down on abusive lending and financial services. By the end of fiscal year 2016, the CFPB had handled nearly one million consumer complaints and taken actions that resulted in $11.7 billion in relief for more than twenty-seven million consumers.4. Negotiated a Deal to Block A Nuclear IranLed six nations in reaching an agreement with Iran that requires the country to end its nuclear weapons program and submit to a rigorous International Atomic Energy Agency inspections regime in exchange for lifting global sanctions. The deal—which resulted from first toughening sanctions against Iran—also blocked Iran’s pathways to building a bomb, slowing down the development time for a weapon from three months to one year if Iran were to break its commitments.5. Secured U.S. Commitment to a Global Agreement on Climate ChangeProvided key leadership to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which produced the2015 Paris Agreement, a commitment by 197 nations to reduce global carbon emissions and limit the global rise in temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius.6. Eliminated Osama bin LadenIn 2011, ordered the Special Forces raid of the secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in which the terrorist leader was killed and a trove of al-Qaeda documents was retained.7. Ended U.S. Combat Missions in Iraq and AfghanistanAfter an initial troop surge in Afghanistan, brought home 90 percent of the nearly 180,000 troops who were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan when he took office, leaving only a small contingent of forces to assist the Iraqi and Afghani militaries against insurgents and the Taliban. The withdrawal from Iraq created the vacuum that ISIS has filled. But, recently, without redeploying ground troops, the U.S. has helped the Iraqi military in reversing ISIS’s gains.8. Turned Around the U.S. Auto IndustryIn 2009, injected $62 billion (on top of the $13.4 billion in loans from the George W. Bush administration) into ailing GM and Chrysler in return for equity stakes and agreements for massive restructuring. By December 2014, the car companies had repaid $70.4 billion of the funds, and the Center for Automotive Research estimated that 2.5 million jobs were saved.9. Repealed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’’Ended the 1990s-era restriction and formalized a new policy allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time.10. Supported Federal Recognition of Same-Sex MarriagesDecided in 2011 that the federal government would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act, which restricted federal marriage recognition to opposite-sex couples. In June 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down key portions of the law as unconstitutional, allowing married same-sex couples to finally receive federal protections like Social Security and veteran benefits.11. Reversed Bush Torture PoliciesTwo days after taking office, signed an executive order banning the so-called “enhanced interrogation” techniques used by the CIA under President Bush and considered inhumane under the Geneva Conventions. Also released the secret Bush administration legal opinions supporting the use of these techniques.12. Established Rules to Limit Carbon Emissions from Power PlantsFinalized a “Clean Power Plan” in 2015 through new EPA regulations, setting the first-ever carbon pollution standards for existing power plants. When fully implemented in 2030, the new rules will result in a 32 percent reduction in carbon emissions compared to 2005.13. Normalized Relations with CubaIn 2014, took steps to open diplomatic and commercial ties with Cuba, ending the failed Cold War policy of isolation. In March 2016, direct mail flights to Cuba resumed for the first time in fifty years. American tourists may also now freely visit the country.14. Put Medicare on Sounder Financial FootingSlowed the growth of health care spending through cost-saving measures enacted as part of the ACA, ensuring the solvency of Medicare’s principal trust fund through 2028.15. Protected DREAMers from DeportationTook executive action in June 2012 to protect undocumented young people brought to the U.S. as children(so-called DREAMers) from deportation and allow them to apply for work permits.16. Established Net NeutralityDirected the Federal Communications Commission to issue a rule classifying internet service providers as a public utility and forcing them to treat all web traffic the same, regardless of source. After years of litigation, a federal court upheld the FCC’s rule, meaning providers can’t favor certain websites or block others.17. Protected Two Liberal Seats on the U.S. Supreme CourtNominated and obtained confirmation for Sonia Sotomayor (the first Hispanic person and third woman to serve on the Court) in 2009 and Elena Kagan (the fourth woman) in 2010. They replaced David Souter and John Paul Stevens, respectively.18. Boosted Fuel Efficiency StandardsReleased new fuel efficiency standards in 2011 that will increase fuel economy to the equivalent of 54.5 miles per gallon for cars and light-duty trucks by model year 2025.19. Kicked Banks Out of Federal Student Loan Program, Expanded Pell Grant FundingAs part of the 2010 health care reform bill, signed a measure ending the decades-old practice of subsidizing banks to provide college loans. As a result, all students began getting their federal student loans directly from the federal government. More than half of the savings ($36 billion over ten years) is dedicated to expanding Pell Grants to lower-income students.20. Improved America’s Image AbroadWith new policies, diplomacy, and rhetoric, reversed a sharp decline in world opinion toward the U.S. (and the corresponding loss of “soft power”) during the Bush years. Favorable opinion toward the United States rose during Obama’s first term in ten of fifteen countries surveyed by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, with an average increase of 26 percent, and have stayed high ever since.21. Left His Mark on the Federal JudiciaryAppointed more than 300 judges to federal district and appeals courts, in line with other two-term presidents, tipping the balance to majority Democrat appointed. A majority of judges on nine of the thirteen appeals courts are now Democratic appointees—compared to just one when Obama took office. Appointed a record number of female (138) and minority (120) judges to the federal bench, as well as eleven openly gay or lesbian judges.22. Diversified the Federal BureaucracyAppointed women and people of color to fill more than half of appointments to policy positions requiring Senate confirmation, including seventeen of thirty-one Cabinet positions.23. Passed Fair Sentencing ActSigned 2010 legislation that reduced the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine possession from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1. Successfully lobbied the United States Sentencing Commission to apply those measures retroactively, which contributed to the largest decrease in the federal prison population in over thirty years.24. Revived the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights DivisionThrough then Attorney General Eric Holder, announced a major overhaul of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division in 2009 to bring back federal civil rights enforcement, which had atrophied under President Bush. Among other priorities, the division stepped up its efforts against housing and employment discrimination, strengthened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, and put renewed focus on cracking down on discriminatory policing practices.25. Expanded Wilderness and Watershed ProtectionSigned the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009, which designates more than two million acres as wilderness, creates thousands of miles of recreational and historic trails, and protects over 1,000 miles of rivers. By designating new national monuments and other measures, permanently protects over 548 million acres, more than any other president.26. Gave the FDA the Power to Regulate TobaccoSigned the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act in 2009. Nine years in the making and long resisted by the tobacco industry, the law mandates that tobacco manufacturers disclose all ingredients, obtain FDA approval for new products, and expand the size and prominence of cigarette warning labels. It also bans the sale of “light” cigarettes and tobacco sponsorship of entertainment events.27. Trimmed and Reoriented Missile DefenseCut the Reagan-era “Star Wars” missile defense budget, saving $1.4 billion in 2010, and canceled plans to station antiballistic missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic in favor of a sea-based defense plan focused on Iran and North Korea.28. Kick-started Clean Energy InvestmentAs part of the 2009 stimulus, invested $90 billion in research on smart grids, energy-efficient electric cars, renewable electricity generation, cleaner coal, and biofuels. Launched a clean energy incubator within the Argonne National Laboratory and encouraged $4 billion in commitments by foundations, institutional investors, and other private-sector stakeholders to boost their investments in clean energy technology.29. Reduced the Threat from Nuclear WeaponsInitiated the biannual Nuclear Security Summit to address the global threat posed by nuclear terrorism and advance a common approach to strengthening nuclear security. As a result, weapons-usable highly enriched uranium has been removed from sixteen countries. Signed and won ratification of a 2011 treaty with Russia to limit each country to 1,550 strategic warheads (down from 2,200) and 700 launchers (down from more than 1,400). The treaty also reestablished a monitory and transparency program that had lapsed in 2009.30. Passed Credit Card ReformsSigned the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, which prohibits credit card companies from raising rates without advance notification, mandates a grace period on interest rate increases, and strictly limits overdraft and other fees.31. Cut Veteran Homelessness by HalfIn 2010, launched the nation’s first comprehensive strategy to prevent and end homelessness, Opening Doors, which has led to a 47 percent decline in the number of homeless veterans since 2010 and aims to end youth homelessness by 2020.32. Enacted Government Surveillance ReformSigned the 2015 USA Freedom Act, which bans the governmental collection of bulk data, creates a special panel to provide technical and legal advice to the court administering the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and provides greater transparency for FISA court opinions. The ACLU noted that the legislation marked the first time since 1978 that Congress has “taken steps to restrict, rather than expand, its government surveillance authority.”33. Expanded Overtime PayUpdated a provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act to ensure overtime pay for employees making up to $47,476 a year, thereby expanding overtime protections to 4.2 million workers. The new rules were set to go into effect in December 2016, but were blocked in November by a federal judge in Texas.34. Cracked Down on Bad For-Profit CollegesThrough the Department of Education, issued “gainful employment” regulations in 2011, cutting off commercially focused schools from federal student aid funding if more than 25 percent of former students aren’t paying off their loans or if former students spend more than 12 percent of their average total earnings servicing student loans. In June 2016, regulators voted to shut down the nation’s largest accreditor of for-profit colleges, cutting off federal aid to hundreds of for-profits.35. Cut the DeficitReduced the federal deficit from 9.8 percent of GDP in 2009 to 3.2 percent in 2016, one benefit of a strengthening economy.36. Created the College ScorecardThrough the Department of Education, developed a comprehensive database in 2015 that allows prospective college students to compare potential schools based on costs, graduation rates, debt, and post-college earnings.37. Improved School NutritionSigned the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act in 2010, championed by Michelle Obama, mandating a $4.5 billion spending boost and higher nutritional standards for school lunches. New rules double the amount of fruits and vegetables, and require only whole grains, in foods served to students.38. Expanded the Definition of Hate CrimesSigned the Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009, applying existing hate crime laws to crimes based on a victim’s sexual orientation, gender, or disability, in addition to race, religion, or national origin.39. Recognized the Dangers of Carbon DioxideThrough 2009 EPA regulations, declared carbon dioxide a pollutant, allowing the agency to regulateits production.40. Strengthened Women’s Right to Fair PaySigned the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009, giving women who are paid less than men for the same work the right to sue their employers after they find out about the discrimination, even if it happened years ago. Under previous law, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the statute of limitations on such suits ran out 180 days after the alleged discrimination occurred, even if the victims never knew about it.41. Secured the Removal of Chemical Weapons from SyriaForced an agreement by Syrian leader Bashar Assad in 2013 to destroy the country’s stockpile of chemical weapons in accordance with the United Nations Chemical Weapons Convention. In 2016, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed the destruction of thousands of tons of mustard gas and other toxic chemicals. (There is evidence, however, that Assad has recently continued to use chlorine gas against rebels and civilians in Aleppo.)42. Protected LGBTQ Americans From Employment DiscriminationSigned an executive order in 2014 prohibiting federal contractors and subcontractors from discriminating against their workers on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.43. Reduced Discrimination Against Former Prisoners in Federal HiringSigned an executive order to “ban the box” in federal hiring and contracting. Government employers can’t ask about criminal records at the beginning of the application process, giving applicants with a criminal history a fairer shot.44. Won Major Victories Against Housing and Mortgage DiscriminationThrough the Justice Department, reached a record $335 million settlement against Countrywide Financial Corporation and a $175 million settlement against Wells Fargo for their practices of charging higher interest and fees to African American and Latino borrowers prior to the financial crisis, in addition to numerous other suits pursued on behalf of borrowers. In 2015, the administration successfully argued before the Supreme Court that victims of housing discrimination suing for bias only need to show “disparate impact,” not an intent to discriminate, to win their case.45. Expanded Broadband CoverageObtained approval from the FCC to shift $8 billion in subsidies away from landlines and toward broadbandinternet access for lower-income rural families. By 2016, 98 percent of Americans had access to fast 4G/LTE broadband.46. Expanded Health Coverage for ChildrenSigned the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act in 2009, expanding the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to cover an additional four million children, paid for by a tax increase on tobacco products.47. Improved Food SafetySigned the 2011 FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which increased the Food and Drug Administration’s budget by $1.4 billion and expanded its regulatory responsibilities to include increasing the number of food inspections, issuing direct food recalls, and reviewing the safety practices of countries exporting food products to the U.S.48. Let the Space Shuttle Die and Killed the Planned Moon MissionAllowed the expensive ($1 billion per launch), badly designed, and dangerous shuttle program to make its final launch on July 8, 2011. Cut off funding for the even more bloated and problem-plagued Bush-era Constellation program to build a moon base in favor of support for private-sector low-earth orbit ventures, research on new rocket technologies for long-distance manned flight missions, and unmanned space exploration, including the largest interplanetary rover ever launched, designed to investigate Mars’s potential to support life.49. Rebuilt and Fortified the Gulf Coast post-KatrinaCompleted a $14.5 billion system in 2011 to rebuild the levees in New Orleans and protect it from a 100-year storm.50. Avoided ScandalBecame the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to serve two terms with no serious personal or political scandal.[Ryan Cooper and Siyu Hu contributed to the 2012 version of this article.]Paul Glastris and Nancy LeTourneau