Recently, we held a roundtable discussion at Tigercomm headquarters in Rosslyn, Virginia with former Virginia Governor (now Senator-elect) Tim Kaine, as well as 10 clean economy business leaders from the mid-Atlantic region. One of those leaders was Ken Locklin of Impax Asset Management. Here's a brief description of Impax's work in building the clean economy.
As the world population exceeds seven billion and rises in affluence, concerns about resource scarcity, pollution, energy security and climate change are escalating. Policy makers and investors worldwide are increasingly facing up to the need to develop global resources in a sustainable manner.
At the Tigercomm clean economy forum, Locklin discussed the idea of "Clean Energy Victory Bonds," which would "allow all Americans to invest in Treasury Bonds for as little as $25 each that will fund a clean energy future," with the "$50 billion raised from the bonds [funding] clean energy programs that support wind, solar, energy efficiency, and electric vehicles in the United States." Locklin added that Clean Energy Victory Bonds would allow "people at any level, literally at the level of school kids, to invest in the country's clean energy economy."
Another idea Locklin talked about was "changing the rules on Master Limited Partnerships to allow renewables and energy efficiency to benefit from that financing vehicle." Finally, Locklin argued that small changes to the Federal Power Act so that "as you are taking coal plants offline, you could allocate a portion of the transmission...to renewables" and not just have it all go to "new gas plants." Doing this, in Locklin's view, would "help assure that at least one of the barriers has been moved aside." Sounds like a great idea to us!
