Big names keep presenting the same point: when it comes to green business and helping the economy –- the U.S. had better act now or it may never recover.

While the government continues to get chided for neglecting green energy and technology, the Department of Energy has awarded up to $5 billion to building automation company TAC, owned by French company Schneider Electric, to retrofit federally owned buildings and facilities. Could America finally be catching up?

The contract is just part of a larger green initiative by the federal government, which is the largest single user of energy in the United States, and has the potential to increase energy efficiency, renewable energy, sustainable design and water conservation projects throughout dated government buildings. TAC's business includes reducing energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon footprints and operating costs.

The contract was announced the same day John Doerr, clean energy venture capitalist, and President-elect Barrack Obama both reiterated that America needs to make strides in green technology. Obama announced that his new economic stimulus plan would double alternative energy production over three years, and modernize 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of 2 million homes.

Doerr is a partner at venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which specializes in clean energy, and warned Congress that the United States is losing the worldwide race for green energy. Of the top 30 companies in solar, wind and advanced batteries, only six are American; thus his company invests more in foreign firms than in technologies from the homeland.

Doerr suggested that the government must make changes in order to compete in the green technology revolution. The suggestions include investing in a more efficient electric grid, instilling a cap-and-trade system and carbon tax, making renewable energy a national energy standard, providing new incentives for utilities to conserve energy, and more federal energy research. Without these advancements, the U.S. government will surely lose the green race.

The United States has the opportunity to make huge strides in green business, profit, create jobs and boost the economy, and by neglecting this opportunity, it is quite possible that the country could sink "deeper into a crisis (and) that at some point, we may not be able to reverse," said Obama.