DOCUMERICA

Ed. Note: Everyday the White House gets a lot of questions via Twitter. Yesterday, @WhiteHouse was asked: 

Going green is good, but costly, how is the US going to go ‘green’ energy without raising the deficit?

Check out the response from the White House Council on Environmental Quality and follow us on Twitter for the latest news from the White House and opportunities to engage with us.

When President Obama spoke to Americans in his State of the Union Address, he laid out a plan to take responsibility for our deficit by investing in what makes America stronger, and cutting what doesn’t.  And he recognized that to win the future, we must make America the best place on earth to do business and invest in a strong, modern clean energy economy. 

As long as our economy relies on oil, we will pay the price – not just in dollars spent on a finite source of energy, but also in dollars lost in a missed opportunity to become the world’s leading provider of clean energy technology. Instead of being satisfied with the energy resources of our past, we must push ourselves to create the next generation of sustainable, affordable energy solutions. 

Sustainable practices -- like investing in energy efficient technologies -- save money in the long run.  If the U.S. became 20 percent more energy efficient, we would save more than $200 billion each year.  Here are a few cost-saving programs already underway:

• The Better Buildings Initiative: The President’s Better Buildings Initiative which includes new and expanded incentives for building efficiency – would improve commercial building efficiency 20% by 2020 and help reduce energy costs for American business by $40 billion.
• HOMESTAR Program of Rebates Delivered Directly to Consumers: The Administration continues to advocate for the consumer-friendly HOMESTAR program. Like the Cash for Clunkers program, consumers would be eligible for direct HOMESTAR rebates at the point of sale for a variety of energy-saving investments in their homes.
• A Framework for Continued Growth: The “Recovery through Retrofit” initiative led by the Council on Environmental Quality and Vice President’s Middle Class Taskforce identified market-based solutions to help the energy efficiency industry overcome long-standing barriers. These policies will improve access to information about home energy use and to affordable financing, and will also help create a skilled and certified retrofit workforce.

The Federal Government is putting these principles into action in its own operations. By meeting just one of the sustainability targets President Obama has set for Federal agencies, the government will avoid up to $11 billion in energy costs by 2020.  We are also using the Federal government’s purchasing power to support American ingenuity and build the healthy and prosperous country of tomorrow.

Sahar Wali is Communications Director at the White House Council on Environmental Quality

En español.

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of visiting the Campfield Head Start Center, a National Head Start Center of Excellence in Baltimore, Maryland, with Yvette Sanchez Fuentes, the Director of Head Start at the Administration of Children and Families within the Department of Health and Human Services. During this visit, we toured the center; I read to a classroom of pre-school children; at one point, I even sang along with students to the old favorite, “If you’re happy and you know it.” This experience was such a treat for me, and it was so inspiring to see the pure innocence and joy in the faces of the students.

It’s on behalf of our youngest learners that the Department of Education (ED) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are coordinating our work on programs like Head Start. Our investment in early learning is especially important for our Latino students, who make up the largest minority in this country’s preschool population at 20 percent! We at ED are deeply committed to an education agenda that supports a continuum of learning beginning at birth for all students, and I’m honored to work with HHS to provide support for organizations like the Campfield Head Start Center.

Ed. Note: Updated with video and photo.

This afternoon, President Obama unveils his green fleet initiative which ensures that by 2015, all new vehicles purchased for Americas's federal agencies will be electric, gas-electric hybrid, or alternatively fueled.

I will stand alongside the President when he makes that announcement because the Department of Transportation will do whatever we can to support this bold new goal.

The transportation sector accounts for two-thirds of the United States’ oil use and contributes one-third of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.  After housing, transportation is the second biggest monthly expense for most American families.  Reducing the gas consumed by our federal fleet will help relieve some of the upward pressure on gas prices.

As the President said earlier this week, “In an economy that relies so heavily on oil, rising prices at the pump affect everybody.”

We have the opportunity, and the obligation, to take action.  We can change both the types and the amounts of energy that our transportation systems use while also creating good, high-paying jobs and easing everyone’s burden at the pump.

As Women's History Month draws to a close, First Lady Michelle Obama brought a group of America's most accomplished women to D.C. to meet with area students. Among the attendees were WNBA star Lisa Leslie, former Olympians Michelle Kwan and Dominique Dawes, actresses Geena Davis and Hillary Swank, astronaut Ellen Ochoa, Air Force General Dana Born, and almost a dozen more leaders from the worlds of business and entertainment.

First Lady Michelle Obama shares her experiences with students at Ballou High School in Washington, D.C. Mrs. Obama encouraged them to encourage them to strive for excellence while pursuing their career goals. March 30, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

During the day, the First Lady paid a visit to Ballou High School in Washington, D.C., and spoke with a group of exceptional students. She reminded them that any dream is possible through a strong education and hard work:

Barack and I were not born with silver spoons in our mouths and connections and money and resources. A lot of why we’re where we are today is because we worked hard. We felt a deep passion for getting our education.  We were motivated not by making our friends proud of us, but by making our family proud of us. And with a lot of preparation, when the opportunities presented themselves, we were ready. And you all can do the same.