"It just isn't true that in the promised land of the future, clean energy will cost more than carbon-based energy," Reed E. Hundt, co-chairman of the Coalition for the Green Bank, said today at a press conference to launch Clean Energy Week, a series of workshops, rallies and outreach activities on Capitol Hill.

With the federal budget out today, event participants focused primarily on clean energy as a potential salve to a $1.7 trillion deficit. Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy and moderator of the press conference, suggested that the effect of energy reform on the economy would be largely salutary. She cited a recent study by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley forecasting 1.9 million new jobs in clean energy by 2020 in the event that Congress creates incentives for research in the fledgling industry.

The future of cap-and-trade remains uncertain in the Senate, but clean energy is poised for a boost from the jobs bill President Obama called for last week in his State of the Union address. "We never expected 6 months ago that we would be talking about the jobs bill as the bus we get on right now," said Hundt. But by yoking their agenda to the president's efforts on the economy, clean-energy proponents hope their message gets a boost.

In contrast to some past environmental campaigns, none of the participants at today's press conference framed the push for clean energy in moral terms. The purpose of Clean Energy Week is to devise a practical solution, said Jeff Anderson, executive director of the Clean Energy Network. We are "agnostic as to the mechanism," he said, "as long as it's transparent."

For the time being, however, energy legislation is stalled. Lawmakers are not out on the field, said Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy. They are "in the locker room, discussing how to play the game."

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