Green lobby critical of new-roads agenda

Friends of the Earth on Monday attacked President-elect Barack Obama’s call for new infrastructure projects in his economic-stimulus package, saying it’s a road to pollution.

The 39-year-old environmental group launched a new Web site (www.roadtonowhere .org) and announced plans for ads, grass-roots mobilization and lobbying of Congress to keep new construction of roads out of a stimulus bill.

“More roads mean more pollution and more dependence on oil, hurting our economy, security and climate,” Friends of the Earth’s Colin Peppard said.

The group, which includes more than 100,000 members and activists in the U.S., said transportation is responsible for 30 percent of the country’s global-warming pollution and nearly 70 percent of its oil use, and that 10 miles of new four-lane highway result in emissions equivalent to the lifetime emissions of more than 45,000 Hummers.

Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress have made building roads, bridges and schools - and repairing or repaving existing infrastructure - a cornerstone of a stimulus that could cost between $600 billion and $1 trillion early next year.

Friends of the Earth does not oppose repairing existing roadways, though it stressed the need for more public transit, passenger rail, and bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

“Investments in clean transportation alternatives, as well as road and bridge maintenance and repair, create more jobs than new-road construction and help families save money on gas,” Mr. Peppard said. “Focusing an economic-stimulus package on such clean investments should be a no-brainer.”

The assault on stimulus roadwork came as other environmentalists are raising alarms that national climate-change policy could get sidelined in Congress by economic concerns. The green lobby, as reflected by Friends of the Earth, is increasingly uneasy with Mr. Obama’s assurances that Democrats can meld economic, energy and environmental priorities.

The Obama transition team did not immediately comment on the Friends of the Earth’s “road-to-nowhere” campaign.

Mr. Obama, who met with his economic advisers Tuesday to work on a stimulus plan, stressed the need to “rebuild.”

“My economic team … is helping to shape what is going to be a bold agenda to create 2.5 million new jobs, to start helping states and local governments with shovel-ready projects - rebuilding our roads, our bridges, making sure that schools … are energy-efficient, putting people back to work, getting businesses to start seeing some increase in demand,” he said.

“I’m confident that we can accomplish that if we’ve got Democrats and Republicans, federal, state, and local governments all working together,” Mr. Obama said. “But, look, we are going through the toughest time, economically, since the Great Depression. And it’s going to be - it’s going to be tough.”

A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a chief proponent of stimulus infrastructure spending, said the California Democrat is sensitive to environmental concerns and noted the speaker’s pledge that the stimulus would be “forward-looking.”

The stimulus also likely will include increased Medicaid payments to states, expanded eligibility for food stamps and other nutrition programs, extended unemployment benefits and middle-class tax cuts. But infrastructure projects are expected to dominate the spending.

Capitol Hill Republicans say such projects take too long and will not spur the economy.