From the National Archives website:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Both Paul Krugman and the NYTimes editorial page put a 2nd stimulus back on the table. 

Edward Schumacker-Matos takes a deeper look at what is happening in Honduras. 

Huffington Post features the much-discussed Matt Taibbi piece on Goldman Sachs. 

Leon Wieseltier takes a hard look at Obama, the realist.

From a communications standpoint I think the President is going to have to return to a much more elemental discussion of his strategy to create long term growth and broad-based prosperity, explaining how the stimulus, the auto bailout, his financial regulatory plan, health care reform, energy and climate legislation, the foreclosure initiative, new credit card regulations, immigration reform, the G20 process, a completed DOHA round all add up to a comprehensive approach to tackling the most important set of problems facing the nation - our weakened economy, our struggling people, an ailing and worsening global economic outlook. 

There should be no doubt now that ushering in a new era of domestic and global prosperity should be the primary organizing principle of the Obama Presidency.   While he and his team may have avoided a global collapse earlier this year, the global financial system is still very weak, and as Rob Shapiro often says, still very vulnerable to additional shocks.   As we saw in the 1930s a sustained global downturn can lead to nasty geopolitical problems.  And it is hard to imagine the President maintaining broad support for his agenda at home if the domestic economy continues to get much worse. 

As I wrote the other night one thing that I think is essential in this next stage of our conversation about future prosperity is a new rhetorical frame for what we are trying to do.  The President has used two incomptable phrases to describe his strategy - "recovery," and "new foundation."  This tension has to be reconciled, and as I have suggested, the concept of "recovery" should be abandoned for a new vocabulary that adequately describes and attacks an economy that has been underperforming for average Americans for far too long.  The "new foundation" language is closer to what is required but still not there yet.  

In poll after poll the American people see the economy as the overwhelming priority for those in power.  And they are right of course.  The President needs to take a step back, and re-engage dramatically here and abroad on a new economic crusade, or face the prospect of getting little credit for all his hard work to make historic reforms in our health care, climate and energy policies this year.

Oh, and by the way, buried deep in your paper this morning is this exciting little nugget - at some point in the next few weeks we wiil have had twice as many banks fail and be seized by the FDIC this year than in the last two years, combined.

Thursday marks the fourth day since the Honduran military ousted President Manuel Zalaya in a bloodless coup and exiled him to Costa Rica.  The coup has been met with near-universal international opprobrium: the United Nations passed a resolution on Tuesday condemning the military’s actions as fundamentally undemocratic; the Organization of American States has threatened to suspend Honduras if Zayala is not reinstated to the presidency; the World Bank has frozen loans to the country; and leaders running the spectrum from Barack Obama to Hugo Chavez have resoundingly criticized the military takeover.

Zelaya was deposed following a contentious debate over the legality of holding a referendum asking Hondurans to change the constitution to eliminate term limits for the president. The Honduran Supreme Court, the military, and the legislative branch had all declared his planned ballot to be illegal. Roberto Micheletti, the Honduran Congressional leader, has assumed the presidency in Zalaya’s absence and has vowed that nothing short of a military invasion will reinstate Zalaya as President. The unseated president has stated his plans to return to Honduras with a delegation of Latin American leaders, including the presidents of Ecuador and Argentina; however, Micheletti proclaimed on Wednesday that Zalaya will be arrested the moment he sets foot in Honduras.

Leader: Helmand

- Early this morning, thousands of U.S. Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade pushed into Afghanistan's Helmand River valley, to attempt to retake the valley from the Taliban.  The Helmand valley is one of the hotbeds for poppy growth and opium production in Afghanistan, which serves as a major source of finance for the Taliban. Pakistani soldiers fanned out along the Afghan border to cut off a likely escape route for Taliban militants. 

- Shortly after the campaign began, the military reported that a Marine had been taken captive by Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan-- an incident unrelated to the new offensive.  The U.S. military is doing what they can to retrieve him.

Politics

- Ed Luce writes for the FT that President Obama has entered "the most decisive phase of his presidency." He quotes Simon at length:

President Obama was elected to make Washington work in the national, not the special, interest... The greatest threat to his personal brand would be the sense that rather than taming Washington, it had tamed him - that rather than the visionary leadership he promised, he was just another politician.

- President Obama held a virtual town hall meeting in Virginia yesterday, taking seven questions on health care, including one via Twitter!

Economy

- The unemployment rate has risen to 9.5%, and the economy lost more jobs in June than anybody expected.  The LA Times looks at the possibility that we're headed into a "jobless recovery."

- In the past three months, the WTO has counted 83 new trade-restricting measures, despite promises around the world to avoid protectionism in this economic crisis.  The WTO has a full-time job combating these new measures.

International

- The opposition leaders in Iran continue to stand up to the leadership, refusing to accept Ahmadinejad's victory in the presidential election. Mir Hussein Mousavi was joined in his opposition by Mehdi Karroubi, another presidential candidate, and Mohammed Khatami, a former president and cleric.

New From NDN

- Rob Shapiro has a new essay on America's rising savings rate, asking whether it's a good thing for our economy.

- Simon has a new piece that excerpts from David Leonhardt's recent article, and stresses the importance of keeping our focus on the economy.

One More Thing

- Last, Stephen Colbert is just hilarious, and that's all I have to say:

What happens if Americans come out of the current downturn with a serious commitment to save more? There are many sound and obvious reasons for people to save -- to build up a cushion should they lose their jobs, for example, accumulate the down payment for a house, cover their children's college tuition, and be able to retire on more than their Social Security. Yet, over the last generation, the U.S. personal saving rate fell steadily and sharply, even reaching negative territory, as most Americans decided that the rising value of their homes or stocks could substitute for saving. And anyway, most of us simply preferred to consume more. The drawbacks became painfully clear as soon as the current crisis struck, and those home and stock values nosedived.

For now, personal saving is back, quickly turning positive and reaching 4.3 percent of people's post-tax incomes in the first quarter and nearly 7 percent in May. Businesses also are saving (i.e., they're retaining earnings) -- but not much, since hard times leave them less to save: The private saving rate, which includes businesses and households, was a little under 6 percent of national income in the first quarter. But the national saving rate is down in negative territory for the first time in generations, mainly because federal and state governments are running such big deficits -- i.e., "public dissaving." So households are rebuilding their resources, businesses are holding on, and government is using stimulus to support overall demand.

As there are risks to both families and the economy from under-saving -- our low national saving rate is what's forced us to borrow so much from China, Japan and Saudi Arabia -- high saving brings its own problems. As people save more, they have to consume relatively less, and ours is an economy run for a long-time largely on consumption. A saving rate substantially higher than we've been used to could mean slower growth and fewer new jobs, unless we maintain strong demand with large, permanent government deficits -- a bad idea for other reasons -- or much stronger business investment. Other nations also have some skin in this game of ours: More than $2 trillion of what we consumed last year came from abroad -- imports -- so weaker U.S. consumption means fewer exports and jobs in China, Germany, Japan and a lot of other places.

How we all fare with a higher saving rate will depend in part on how quickly it rises and how high it goes. Nouriel Roubini, the NYU economist who actually predicted the housing and financial market meltdowns, sees personal saving going to 10 or 11 percent, and worries especially about how a quick ascent to those levels could mean a deeper and longer recession. Most Wall Street economists, however, predict a relatively gradual increase which shouldn't impair an initial recovery -- especially since we still have most of the federal stimulus in the pipeline -- but would likely mean a slower expansion. But if the saving rate does continue to go up, it's likely to stay high for some time: Nobel economist Edmund Phelps calculates that it may take 15 years for American households to rebuild what they've lost in this meltdown. And that doesn't count the enormous debts which so many Americans carry today: In the seven years from 2000 to 2007, the debts of American households grew as much, relative to income, as they did during the previous 25 years. All of this helps explain why a majority of Americans now say they plan to keep their expenditures down after the recession ends.

The actual effect of higher saving on jobs, growth and most Americans' quality of life, however, will really depend on what happens to the incomes those savings come out of. If we return to the trends of the 2000-2007 expansion, when real wages declined and real incomes stalled, each percentage point increase in the saving rate will reduce spending by at least $100 billion. That's more than $1 trillion if we reach 10 percent and stay there (and assuming business investment doesn't soar). But if incomes rise 2 percent a year in the next expansion -- as they did through much of the 1990s -- we can save more without having to endure a long period of very slow growth.

It always comes back to incomes. It was, after all, the income slowdown since 2001 which drove up that household debt and pushed tens millions of families to spend down their home equity -- ultimately contributing to the current meltdown. And let's talk politics: Once the recession eases, what happens to wages and incomes will be the critical test of the economic success of Barack Obama's presidency and his large, Democratic majorities.

Unhappily, nothing will be harder to achieve, because restoring the broad income gains we saw in the 1950s, 1970s and again in the 1990s will require, just to begin, slowing increases in the health care and energy costs that businesses bear, and, which in a period of intense global competition come out of jobs and wages. Fortunately, the Obama Administration is focused on both of these problems. The catch is that their programs, at best, will take a decade to produce a significant slowdown in those costs. That's a long time for people to wait while their wages stagnate. But if we don't start now, those benefits will be still further off, and prospects for broad upward mobility could fade for another generation.

On my way back to DC after three days in New York (including some time at this year's excellent Personal Democracy Forum which NDN helped sponsor) and I can't stop thinking about the conversations about the American economy I had while there.   David Leonhardt has a piece in today's Times which captured a lot of the sentiment I heard.  It begins:

In the weeks just before President Obama took office, his economic advisers made a mistake. They got a little carried away with hope.

To make the case for a big stimulus package, they released their economic forecast for the next few years. Without the stimulus, they saw the unemployment rate — then 7.2 percent — rising above 8 percent in 2009 and peaking at 9 percent next year. With the stimulus, the advisers said, unemployment would probably peak at 8 percent late this year.

We now know that this forecast was terribly optimistic. The jobless rate has already reached 9.4 percent. On Thursday, the Labor Department will announce the latest number, for June, and forecasters are expecting it to rise further. In concrete terms, the difference between the situation that the Obama advisers predicted and the one that has come to pass is about 2.5 million jobs. It’s as if every worker in the city of Los Angeles received an unexpected layoff notice.

There are two possible explanations that the administration was so wrong. And sorting through them matters a great deal, because they point in opposite policy directions.

The first explanation is that the economy has deteriorated because the stimulus package failed. Some critics say that stimulus just doesn’t work, while others argue that this particular package was too small or too badly constructed to make a difference.

The second answer is that the economy has deteriorated in spite of the stimulus. In other words, the patient is not as sick as he would have been without the medicine he received. But he is a lot sicker than doctors realized when they prescribed it.

To me, the evidence is fairly compelling that the second answer is the right one. The stimulus package does seem to have helped. But its impact has been minor — so far — compared with the harshness of the Great Recession.

Unfortunately, the administration’s rose-colored forecast has muddied this picture. So if at some point this year or next the White House decides that the economy needs more stimulus, skeptics will surely brandish that old forecast.

Worst of all, the economy really may need more help.

Three quick thoughts:

1) It is time for the Obama Administration to abandon the "recovery" rhetorical frame.  Going back to the economy under Bush is neither possible given what has happened in recent months, nor is it desirable - that economy produced growth but declining incomes for a typical family.  The more recent formulation of "new foundation" is clearly a better frame.   What America needs is a more modern and better economy - the very opposite of recovering what we had.

2) It is remarkable how suprised mainstream economists - including the Obama team - have been by the virulence of the Great Recession.  We will be debating this point for years but certainly one major factor is that the American middle class was already in a terribly weakened state prior to the financial crisis.  Incomes had been declining, and wages flat for most of the current decade, long before the Recession began.  So when it kicked in, and a weakened middle class then lost wealth, jobs, homes, income while retaining high levels of debt, things have gotten much much worse with the end hard to see today. 

My own view is that we really don't understand how robust growth is going to happen again in the Untied States, and certainly we don't know how we can get incomes up again given that they fell during the last period of sustained growth.  What are we doing differently now that will ensure that we don't "recover" the Bush economy - one that saw growth and income decline?

Given the state of the American consumer it is easy to see how over the next 3-5-7 years the savings rate stays very high as people replenish their lost savings and pay down high-interest debt.  This leaves little left over for consumption.  If the American people spend the next half a decade getting their own personal balance sheets in order, and buying very little to do so, we could see very slow growth here and aboard, and may be headed, incredibly, to an entire decade or more of no income growth for the typical American family. 

3) In meeting after meeting I heard that the coming commercial real estate crisis could dwarf the home mortgage crisis.  Are we really ready for this? Do our policy makers understand what is coming here? Will another round of defaults then once again cause bank failures and usher in a new round of financial crisis?  Predictions are we will begin to feell the effects of this impending new crisis this fall, while the nation may also start having to manage the prospect of several states, including California, going bankrupt or shutting down this summer.

As recent polls have shown the American people believe there is one dominant issue in American politics today - the economy.  While I am proud of the President for bravely taking on health care and climate change this summer, he also cannot lose sight of our weakened economy, weakened financial sector and weakened middle class, and to be very very sure he is keeping his eye on this very important ball.  It seems like the nation is ready for, and requires, a big conversation about our economic future, and how this new economy of the 21st century will be very different from the one just past.  I am not convinced we are adequately preparing our people for what is to come, and certainly the nostalgia tied into the concept of "recovery" is not helping us let go of an old economic and financial paradigm, and forthrightly begin the process of welcoming in the next.

The FY2010 Appropriations Bill in the House of Representatives proposes to lift a special prohibition on the use of locally raised funds for abortion.  In a statement Congressman José E. Serrano, Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, said the bill takes steps to reduce "undue congressional interference in local affairs and [eliminate] restrictions on the District that do not apply to other parts of the nation."

The bill would also discontinue the ban on Washington using federal money to register same-sex domestic and partners and providing them with benefits as well as bans on other funding related social issues.

Because Congress ultimately controls the District of Columbia, conservative members have played politics with abortion funding for years and the current bans have been in place since the days when Repulicans ruled the House.  Democrats are in for a fight from the republicans who want to keep the bans in place.

In the meantime, the Senate has not yet taken up their version of the Appropriations Bill, however, it is said they will run into staunch opposition if they eliminate the funding bans.

Leader: The Honorable Al Franken

- The Minnesota Supreme Court roundly rejected former Senator Norm Coleman's arguments against the validity of the vote count from November's election, and he finally conceded defeat, eight months later.  Al Franken, the former comedian and author, will, this time for real, become the new junior senator from Minnesota, and could be seated as soon as Monday. Franken will be the 60th Democrat in the Senate, giving the Dems, if only theoretically, the power to overcome the filibuster.

- Politico sees two basic reasons that Norm Coleman had to give up: he was running out of money, and the courts had rejected every one of his arguments. The Hill runs an article on a separate subject that gains new relevancy from Franken's accession: In the House, a big Democratic majority means more defections.  Might the same be true in the Senate?

Politics

- The Treasury Department unveiled legislation yesterday that would establish the Consumer Protection Agency that President Obama described last week.  Banks have immediately made the destruction of this proposed agency a top priority.

- The WaPo and the NY Times both run pieces chronicling the Supreme Court's slant to the right since Roberts took over the court.  It seems unlikely that President Obama will have the chance to replace a conservative justice with a liberal one, so this trend will likely continue for years.

- Todd Purdum published a massive profile of Sarah Palin in the latest Vanity Fair.  I blogged about it yesterday. The article has apparently set off feuding among GOP leaders.

Economy

- Walmart has come out in support of President Obama's plan to overhaul health care. The nation's largest private employer supports the concept of requiring employers to provide health care for all their employees.

- Planned layoffs at U.S. firms hit their lowest level in June since March 2008.  This is the fifth consecutive month planned layoffs have fallen.

International

- The Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, the chief political rival of President Robert Mugabe, said yesterday that an official he had appointed within the government had negotiated a deal with China for nearly $1 billion in loans.  Zimbabwe needs about $8 billion to rebuild its economy, but Western governments have been loath to pony up while President Mugabe remains in power, perpetrating the human rights abuses he is so famous for.

- Sweden takes over the helm of the European Union today, and has some big challenges in the coming months.  On the top of their agenda is keeping the Lisbon treaty alive, and they'll also be trying to bring the U.S. and China into a global carbon emissions reduction scheme at December's Copenhagen climate summit.

- Argentina has declared a Swine Flu emergency, after at least 26 people have died from the disease in recent days.

New From NDN

- Michael Moynihan notes two recent announcements from the Department of Energy that indicate the Administration is on the smart grid case.

- Simon and Morley had a knockout session at the Personal Democracy Forum on Monday.  Keep your eye on this space for a recap, possibly with pictures and things!

One More Thing

- Kathleeen Sebelius is surprisingly hilarious... perhaps she'll be giving Al Franken a run for his money as DC's funniest pol?

- Last, today's installment from the department of awesome clouds:

Todd Purdum drops ten thousand words on Sarah Palin in the latest Vanity Fair, and they hit pretty hard.  The profile is anything but flattering, and casts an image of Palin as a cagey, egocentric, aggressive politician characterized by a deep mistrust of others and a very informal relationship with the truth.

Purdum's new reporting focuses on her record as Governor of Alaska-- a tenure dominated by personality conflicts and a bulldozer approach to getting what she wanted. Her record in Alaska was a pretty clear predictor of her behavior on the campaign, and Purdum concludes that John McCain could have learned everything he needed to make a better decision if he had done a more careful review of her gubernatorial record.

A few gem quotes from the article:

This sort of slipperiness—about both what the truth was and whether the truth even mattered—persisted on questions great and small...

In every job, she surrounded herself with an insular coterie of trusted friends, took disagreements personally, discarded people who were no longer useful, and swiftly dealt vengeance on enemies, real or perceived...

More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly.

The whole epic article is worth a read.

Last week the Department of Energy released part of the $25 billion in loans provided for through the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, included in Section 136 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The delay in releasing these funds had been one of the longest running scandals in clean tech policy. Upon taking office, the Obama Administration vowed to expedite their release and Secretary Steven Chu had made finalizing rules needed to administer the program a key priority. In the first installment of the loans, Tesla, the VC-backed California maker of an all-electric sports car, founded by Ebay veterans, will receive $465 million to make its compact, all-electric Model S sedan. Ford will receive $5.9 billion to retool 11 factories across five states to improve the overall fuel efficiency of its fleet.  Finally, Nissan will receive $1.6 billion to retool a factory in Smyrna, Tennessee, to make an electric vehicle that is being developed and initially manufactured in Japan. The remainder of the money will be released next year.

DOE's announcement comes on the heels of the release of its formal $3.9 billion smart grid funding solicitation last week. The Funding Opportunity Announcement spells out the conditions and terms for those seeking funding for smart grid investments under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the offical title of the stimulus bill signed into law earlier this year. These two developments, coming one after the other, are evidence that the DOE is moving rapidly on the President's goal not only of getting money out into the economy to create jobs and drive demand, but also of making investments critical to a clean energy future.

In the case of the auto loans, they could not be more timely. Autos are a capital intensive business and with credit markets still impaired, it would have been very expensive or impossible for Tesla, for example, to borrow this money on its own. However, that does not mean that the loan is not good business for the government and Tesla. CEO Elon Musk indicated he thinks that Tesla may be able to repay the loan ahead of schedule. Tesla, despite some speed bumps in its early phase, is now profitable on a unit basis, meaning the approximately $120,000 price of its sleek sports car -- which has a long waiting list -- exceeds the cost of components.  Having also recently sold a stake to Daimler Benz, the company is now reasonably well capitalized. Recently, investor Steve Wesley indicated that Tesla's sales are on track to pass $100 million, a common bar for conducting an IPO. If Tesla continues on its current track, it may be the first home run of the clean transportation industry. In any case, the DOE funding puts it on track to move from the sports car niche to the mainstream where it hopes to leverage the glamour associated with the roadster. While Ford and Nissan have greater access to the capital markets, these loans -- provided for in the 2007 energy legislation in exchange for a commitment to higher fuel efficiency -- will help achieve that goal.

In the case of the smart grid, the major barrier to moving forward has been undeveloped standards.  Normally, standards evolve slowly as industry players forge alliances and choose standards that already enjoy market adoption. In this case, the desire to stimulate the economy has accelerated this process. Secretary Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke are overseeing an effort led by NIST to fast track standards for the grid to facilitate adoption. The disbursements made by DOE will indeed help establish standards insofar as the money spent will validate standards and increase adoption.

It is important that standards be as open and uniform as possible to create the broadest and fairest playing field for innovators to enter the smart grid technology market.  Because a smart grid is necessary to get clean energy online and also to drive the creation of new energy products and services, this is an area I believe is absolutely critical to determining whether clean technology can live up to its promise. 

While it remains to be seen how the smart grid will develop, these two announcements from DOE show that the Administration is on the case. These developments should be encouraging to anyone concerned about America's clean energy future.