There’s no question that last year’s SAVE Award was a great success, with tens of thousands of ideas to help government save money and be more efficient submitted by Federal employees.  It was a first-of-its-kind exercise, called for by the President, to tap into the knowledge of the people who know government first hand.  As OMB Director Peter Orszag – who was integral to the SAVE Award getting off the ground – has explained, many of those ideas have made their way into reality through the Federal budget process.

This morning the opening stage of the second SAVE Award came to a close, and its success represented yet another big step forward in harvesting the wisdom and institutional knowledge of those working in government to save taxpayer dollars.   Whereas in 2009, employees simply submitted their ideas into a web form – a “black box” of sorts – this year employees were able to not only submit ideas, but vote and comment on ideas from others, allowing collaboration and crowdsourcing to help bring the best ideas to the top, to continue developing ideas, and to demonstrate just how widespread a problem or opportunity really is.  All told, there were more than 18,000 ideas posted, 164,000 votes cast, and more than 13,000 comments registered from just about every agency imaginable.  And they’re all public, allowing everybody from taxpayers to agency heads to consider the ideas for themselves.

Over the coming weeks, OMB staff will be reviewing the submissions and picking some of the best and sharpest as finalists for a last round of voting by the public in September.  The President has always said that change has to come from the bottom up, and there are few better examples than the SAVE Award.

On Tuesday, Vice President Biden continued his Recovery Summer tour at Grand Canyon National Park.  Standing in front of the beautiful overlook at Hopi Point on the south rim of the canyon, we spoke with Roger Geiger, a construction worker who is helping to rehabilitate housing for the Havasupai tribe. Roger talked with us about how this particular Recovery Act project was helping him put food on the table and save for his children’s education.

Vice President Joe Biden talks about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and its impact on National Parks on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, July 27, 2010. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)

In a speech at the National Urban League yesterday, President Obama talked about the importance of getting students enthused about education and the particular importance of science and mathematics education.

Well, there is no better example of how to generate that kind of enthusiasm—all the while helping to make renewable-energy vehicles more practical—than the recently completed American Solar Challenge. Students from 13 universities in the United States, Canada, Germany, and Taiwan competed in the challenge, which requires students to design, construct, and then race a vehicle over 1,100 miles, powered only by the sun.

Every day, the Obama Administration is working to enforce America’s rights in the international trading system – to keep our workers on a level playing field in global markets, and ultimately create and sustain American jobs.

Over the past year, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has stepped up enforcement of our trade agreements using a range of options from negotiation to taking disputes to the World Trade Organization.  These enforcement actions have helped workers in sectors ranging from agriculture to auto parts, from aluminum and steel manufacturing to aerospace construction. 

Because President Obama took action to stem the tide of imported Chinese tires flooding the U.S. market, moms and dads are bringing home paychecks from tire factories in North Carolina and Arkansas.  Because USTR successfully challenged Chinese industrial policy that pushed American auto parts suppliers to move production facilities offshore, men and women in Ohio and Michigan are still working on assembly lines.  And because we took the European Union to court and won, the jobs of thousands of U.S. aerospace engineers and electricians in Washington State, Kansas, and South Carolina are more secure.   And more American workers, from welders to widget-makers, will have a chance at future jobs on a more level playing field.

Ed. Note: We encourage readers to watch the video of the signing, including the moving introduction from Lisa Marie Iyotte.

The President just signed the Tribal Law and Order Act -- an important step to help the Federal Government better address the unique public safety challenges that confront tribal communities.

According to a Department of Justice report, Native American women suffer from violent crime at a rate three and a half times greater than the national average. Astoundingly, one in three Native American women will be raped in their lifetimes. At the White House Tribal Nations Conference in November 2009, President Obama stated that this shocking figure "is an assault on our national conscience that we can no longer ignore."

Last week, Congress took another important step to improve the lives of Native American women by passing the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010. The Act includes a strong emphasis on decreasing violence against women in Native communities, and is one of many steps this Administration strongly supports to address the challenges faced by Native women.

Over the next week, the President will travel to Detroit and Chicago where he will meet with auto workers and tour plants of each of the big three auto makers.  His trips offer an opportunity to take stock of where the industry stands this summer.   

A little more than one year ago, the entire industry was on the edge of failure.  Plants were being closed, jobs were being lost, and America’s future role as a leading producer of vehicles in the global marketplace was in question. We’re now starting to see real signs of recovery.  While there is still a long way to go, the progress to date is far beyond what most observers thought possible a year ago. The industry is creating jobs and American auto companies are addressing past failures, restoring financial discipline and returning to profitability.  Today, the White House released a new report cataloguing some of these early signs of success. 

• Read the report (pdf).

In addition to stabilizing the industry and addressing the hardship faced by communities that lost auto plants and the jobs they provided, the Administration has been focused on making long-term investments across the country that will make the U.S. a home base for the design and production of the next generation of innovative vehicle technologies.  This new interactive map shows where these key investments have been made and the types of projects that will ensure the vehicles of the future are made in America.  

• View the interactive version of the map below.

Ron Bloom is Senior Advisor to Treasury Secretary Geithner and Senior Counselor for Manufacturing Policy
Ed Montgomery is Executive Director of the White House Council on Auto Communities and Workers

Cross posted from the DOT blog.

Today was a great day to be in Colorado. First, I toured a Federal Railroad Administration facility--the work the FRA crew is doing there really deserves its own blog post, so stay tuned for that one next week.

Then, I learned about an exciting new municipal bike-sharing program in Denver with 43 bike stations and more than 400 bikes spread around the city. Mayor Hickenlooper and I even had a chance to test the system by checking out a pair of bicycles and riding them to another station.

But what really drew me to Denver was the Biennial of the Americas, a month-long celebration of the Western Hemisphere. I was there for the Americas Roundtable on Energy and Climate Change: Designing Answers for Today's Challenges and to discuss how DOT is working to manage those challenges.

President Obama traveled to Edison, New Jersey today where he met with a group of small business owners at Tastee Sub Shop to discuss the economy and urge Congress to pass support  for small businesses, the engines of private sector job growth. In his remarks following the meeting, the President spoke about the idea guiding the small business legislation that the Senate is expected to vote on this week.

The recession has meant that folks are spending less. It means that small businesses have had a tougher time getting credit and getting loans. And that’s why when I took office, we put in place an economic plan specifically to help small businesses. And we were guided by a simple idea: Government can’t guarantee success, but it can knock down barriers that keep entrepreneurs from opening or expanding.

President Barack Obama talks with small business owners, from left, Brian Bovio, Dave Thornton, and Catherine Horsburgh at the Tastee Sub Shop in Edison, N.J. The President is visiting Edison to discuss the economy and urge Congress to pass support for small businesses. July 28, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

The New York Times ran a compelling piece today on a report written by Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi which found that the policy response to the economic downturn was “highly effective” and that without the fiscal stimulus and the financial measures the Administration and the Federal Reserve took last year there would be 8.5 million fewer jobs.

With the hard-fought passage of Wall Street Reform last week, the President ensured that Wall Street will be held accountable, and that the American taxpayer will never again be on the hook for their actions.  As the President had said repeatedly, he was just as angry with having to take steps to shore up our financial system as all Americans were.  But when the President came into office, the economy was falling off a cliff, and this report demonstrates just how deep and disastrous the valley below truly was had he not done everything possible to pull it back.  The report particularly emphasizes the effectiveness of financial stability measures including the bank stress tests, the actions of the Fed and the TARP program and it highlights the potential cost to the taxpayers had policy makers not acted at all.