The bill allocates a total of $410 billion in spending for fiscal year 2009 ending in September. Elena Foshay, Apollo’s research associate, scoured the details and found that the bill includes $82 billion in spending on clean energy, energy efficiency, public transit, transportation infrastructure, and research as well as $3.9 billion for job training and placement.

Taken together, the Appropriations Bill is another of the big investments that Congress and the White House are making to pursue a new economic development strategy based on development of clean energy, improving energy efficiency, and generating good green-collar jobs.

Most of the comment and analysis about the Appropriations Bill focused on the edge issues, particularly the more than $7 billion in earmarks, and whether President Barack Obama would address a campaign promise to significantly curtail such spending. More important, clearly, is the sizable investment Washington is starting to make in a new clean energy economy.

Last month, in enacting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Congress and the president committed to spending $113 billion over the next two years on clean energy development and generating good green-collar jobs.

Reprinted with permission from the Apollo Alliance.