The White House on Thursday celebrated the seven-year anniversary of President Obama’s economic stimulus bill by playing up its historic $90 billion in clean energy spending.
The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act “made the largest single investment in clean energy in history,” a White House fact sheet reads.
The bill provided more than $90 billion in clean energy investments, tax incentives to promote job creation and the “deployment of low-carbon technologies,” while “leveraging approximately $150 billion in private and other non-federal capital for clean energy investments,” the White House said.
The president’s spending package raised the country’s gross domestic product by 2-3 percent from 2009 to the middle of 2011, a report issued Thursday by the White House Council of Economic Advisers says. “In addition to providing a stimulus, the funding helped address market failures in clean energy markets.”
“The funding reached nearly every aspect of the value chain for numerous key clean energy technologies, including advanced vehicles, batteries, carbon capture and sequestration and technologies to enhance energy efficiency,” the White House said.
“These investments were a down payment toward an innovative sustainable 21st century clean economy and helped the country take a large step forward to reducing fossil fuel consumption and reducing carbon pollution.”
