LETTER TO EDITOR: Clean jobs, please

The article “Green lobby critical of new-roads agenda” (Nation, Wednesday) is grossly misleading.

Friends of the Earth has not “attacked President-elect Barack Obama’s call for new infrastructure projects,” as the article claims.

In fact, as our www.RoadToNowhere.org Web site -which was mentioned in the article -notes, Mr. Obama and congressional leaders including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have called for forward-thinking stimulus investments to create millions of green jobs, and we support such investments.

Your article’s sub-headline, “Infrastructure plan called bad for ‘economy, security, climate,’” is also misleading. My actual quote was that “more roads” — not infrastructure investments in general — “hurt our economy, security and climate.” In fact, we’ve called for nearly $60 billion in stimulus spending on clean transportation infrastructure such as public transit and passenger rail, in addition to maintenance and rehabilitation of existing roads and bridges.

Hopefully this makes it clear that Friends of the Earth is not fighting Mr. Obama’s plan, which has not yet been released in detail. What Friends of the Earth is fighting is any attempt to hijack this plan with billions of dollars in unnecessary road construction that will create fewer jobs than cleaner alternatives.

COLIN PEPPARD

Transportation campaign manager

Friends of the Earth

Washington