Predictable band-aid approach. 50% of the costs will come from excess profits through no-bid crony contracts. Just as Homeland Security has a "store" on its website, with lists of projects and grants to bid on, the Department of Climate Mitigation will have wide-open doors for businesses eager to cash in.
It would be so much cheaper, more socially productive, to develop a national alternate energy strategy (like the Apollo Alliance.)
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Inevitable bureaucratic and pocket lining bullshit aside, efforts to mitigate climate change related effects and alternate energy strategies are not at odds.
Indeed, point 8 of the Apollo Alliance's "Ten Point Plan" states the following:
8. Reinvest In Smart Urban Growth: Revitalize urban centers to promote strong cities and good jobs, by rebuilding and upgrading local infrastructure including road maintenance, bridge repair, and water and waste water systems, and by expanding redevelopment of idled urban “brownfield” lands, and by improving metropolitan planning and governance.
[...]
link -
<http://www.apolloalliance.org/strategy_center/a_bold_energy_and_jobs_policy/ten_point_plan.cfm>
Sounds like infrastructure improvement to me.
Their focus on "urban" redevelopment is too narrow for my tastes. People in rural and suburban locales also need to think about how buildings, roads and so on will fare under more extreme conditions and what mods are required.
.d.