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Buzz Is Building for Ed Mazria's 14x Stimulus Plan
by Don Knapp
The buck starts here: Take one dollar of federal stimulus money earmarked for local government energy efficiency projects, but don't spend it directly on a one-off project. Instead, use it -- and thousands of other dollars -- to create a local program that lowers the mortgage interest rates for homeowners who renovate or invest in energy efficiency upgrades or renewable energy systems.
When the program takes off, you'll leverage each $1 to generate $14 of private spending and 14 times the number of jobs, reimburse the federal government $3, put $1 back in your local government coffers--and take a big leap toward your local energy and greenhouse gas reduction targets.
In a nutshell, that's 14x Stimulus: A Plan for State and Local Governments. 14x, the brainchild of Architecture 2030 founder Ed Mazria (who hatched the idea after a 1 a.m. phone call from Michelle Wyman), is winning interest among local governments who see its potential. And if you study the plan and grasp the arithmetic, you'll see what they see: that its everybody-wins ROI is for real.
Mother Jones' Michael Mechanic's May 29 article "What One Stimulus Buck Could Do," tells the story of how Mazria created 14x and caught the attention of local elected officials at the Local Climate Leadership Summit.
Mechanic reports that Des Moines, IA, and North Little Rock, AR, are
fully on board and will include a 14x program in their application to
secure stimulus funds through the Department of Energy's Energy
Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program. 
Cincinnati, OH, Atlanta, GA, Dubuque, IA, Santa Barbara, CA, Albuquerque, NM, and Fort Wayne, IN have expressed interest as well.
ICLEI, which co-sponsors the plan along with Architecture 2030, RESNET, and Veterans Green Jobs, hopes that number grows. "It builds local pots of money that cities can reinvest in more energy efficiency," said Michelle Wyman, ICLEI USA Executive Director, in the Mother Jones article. "It's absolutely brilliant. Everybody wins."
