Linda Stone, Executive Director, lstone@all4energy.org, 210-885-6879

Micah Walker, Program Director, mwalker@all4energy.org, 504-258-1247

The Alliance for Affordable Energy, a nonprofit, grassroots membership organization, has been creating fair, affordable and environmentally responsible energy solutions for New Orleans and the nation for 20 years. Our successful collaboration with all sectors of the community, ties to elected officials, decision-makers and national experts, fierce attachment to our city, and ability to keep working throughout the Katrina disaster uniquely position us to lead the region’s sustainable redevelopment effort.

REBUILDING NEW ORLEANS—A MODEL FOR THE GULF COAST

GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR A GREEN, JUST AND SAFE CITY

The post-Katrina rebuilding of the New Orleans region is an historic opportunity to restore what is unique and wonderful about the Crescent City, while improving on persistent problem areas. Many elements of a “sustainable” city can already be found in New Orleans. The city’s tree-lined neighborhoods, two-story homes with porches, and shops within walking distance are exactly what much of the country is trying to return to. While honoring that model, we can enhance damaged homes with energy efficient features. We can build “green” homes that mirror the classic raised doubles with high ceilings and transoms that work so well for hot humid climates. We want to see a New Orleans that retains its rich and diverse heritage, but that serves its people better. Renovating and rebuilding the estimated 200,000 homes damaged or destroyed by the hurricane is expected to cost upwards of $100 billion. Spending this money wisely will ensure that the buildings are affordable and durable, the neighborhoods comfortable and safe, jobs plentiful and accessible, and the region’s culture retained. It will also provide a national model of sustainability and a catalyst for energy-efficient and renewable technologies and community-based economic development.

To ensure that the New Orleans region becomes the shining example President Bush has promised, the Alliance for Affordable Energy calls for rebuilding to be guided by the following six principles.

1. Accountability to and participation by the New Orleans community: Unprecedented governmental resources are expected to be invested in rebuilding the New Orleans region. Strong and independent oversight is essential to ensure that the money is spent fairly and effectively. Local workers and local businesses must be partners in the rebuilding, at fair wages. In addition, workers involved in the cleanup, rebuilding and restart of industry must be protected.

• The Alliance has extensive experience demanding and winning governmental accountability; our actions under Louisiana’s Public Records Law and Louisiana’s Open Meetings Law resulted in greater transparency in local government and more effective citizen participation.
  
• The Alliance’s long history of grassroots organizing and promotion of citizen involvement, along with our extensive network, position us to be an effective community voice in rebuilding.
  
  

2. Mixed-Use, Accessible Neighborhoods: Modern-day American land use is characterized by low-density, single-purpose uses connected by underutilized mass transit, if any. “Smart Growth” upends this pattern by emphasizing a range of housing types; walkable, architecturally distinctive neighborhoods; community participation in decision making; mixed land uses; "predictable, fair, and cost-effective" development decisions; a plurality of transportation modes; compact building styles; and revitalization of existing communities.

• The Alliance knows that New Orleans is already a community of neighborhoods and will work to enhance beneficial qualities and improve troublesome areas.
  
• The Alliance can harness the skills and knowledge of local green builders, architects, energy raters, planners and others to rebuild sustainably.
  
  

3. Sustainable renovation and rebuilding: Per capita energy consumption is six times higher in America than in the rest of the world. In New Orleans energy inefficiency has traditionally been manifested in poorly maintained and unweatherized homes. New Orleans’ redevelopment can be a model for our country by maximizing energy efficiency and incorporating “green” building principles. Energy efficient construction creates jobs and results in monthly savings that go back into the local economy. Green building also incorporates water efficiency, indoor air quality, environmentally friendly materials and beneficial siting. Green buildings generally have longer lives and are built specifically for their geography and climate, making them more appropriate for a region that undergoes extreme weather events. Clearly, construction must be avoided in certain low-lying and particularly vulnerable areas.

• The Alliance has literally put energy efficiency on the map in New Orleans, through our leadership in promoting energy efficient and green buildings, and helping city and state officials implement green building codes, zoning and incentives.
  
  

4. Distributed power generation and alternative fuels: Generating power in diverse locations from a variety of sources including renewable resources and powering vehicles with alternative fuels reduce dependence on fossil fuels and foreign oil, increase reliability, and diminish global warming.

• Solar panels are already being installed in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, and the Alliance will heighten its long-time campaigning for solar energy along with high-efficiency combustion turbines, wind power, fuel cells, and cogeneration systems.
  
  

5. Coastal restoration and safeguarding from storms: Each year Louisiana loses thirty-five square miles of coastal wetlands which constitutes 80 percent of America's total annual wetlands loss. Since 1932 Louisiana has lost 1,900 square miles of wetlands (an area nearly the size of Rhode Island), and an additional 700 square miles is projected to be lost by 2050. Because wetlands act as a storm buffer, redevelopment of New Orleans and surrounding parishes must provide for re-establishing delta marshes and barrier island systems. At the same time, more effective pumps, levees and other barriers must be installed to protect the region from future inundations.

• The Alliance’s close relationships with area biologists and ecologists give us strong leverage to push for full funding of "Coast 2050," an integrated set of restoration projects with an estimated price of $14 billion over 30 years.
  
  

6. Understanding and working to reverse global warming: Long before Katrina, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identified New Orleans as the North American city most endangered by global warming. Both sea level rise and higher ocean temperatures are caused by the warming of our atmosphere. Over the last several years, the Alliance has become steadily more focused and vocal about the city’s vulnerability and our responsibility to lead the nation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Through our efforts, awareness is growing that New Orleans is sinking and losing its barrier islands and protective wetlands, thereby becoming increasingly at risk from the higher intensity storms caused by warmer waters in the Gulf of Mexico.

• As noted, the Alliance has been advising the region’s leaders and general public about the catastrophic local effects of global warming and the need for actions to reverse the trend. With Katrina having validated our Cassandra-like status, we intend to step up our efforts to educate the rest of the nation about catastrophic global warming and to push local leaders to implement measures to decrease greenhouse gases.
  
  

THE ALLIANCE OFFERS UNIQUE ASSETS TO THE REBUILDING EFFORT

The Alliance is distinctly qualified to co-ordinate the many diverse sectors of the New Orleans community in moving the rebuilding effort forward. New Orleans is a complex network of talented and opinionated individuals who are fiercely loyal to their City and its heritage. The Alliance works with community leaders on a daily basis. Countless newspaper articles and the collective memory of New Orleanians attest to the advances the Alliance has made on the community’s behalf, the latest being the passage by the City Council of the New Orleans Energy Efficiency Program (NOEEP), a comprehensive program to bring energy improvements to the entire community.

• The Alliance staff, board and advisory committee come from every sector of the New Orleans community, and will use this diversity and connectivity to bring the city together as hurricane recovery continues.
  
• The Alliance possesses tremendous in-house expertise and resources, and understands which energy-efficient and sustainable technologies are suited to the humid Gulf Coast climate.
  
• The Alliance will call upon a national network representing the full spectrum of sustainable development issues including energy efficiency, green building, smart growth, global warming and transportation.
  
• The Alliance has 20 years experience conducting outreach campaigns, and can bring this knowledge to bear in our most important campaign ever: the healthy and rapid rebuilding of the Crescent City.
  
  

SOME BACKGROUND

The Alliance for Affordable Energy is Louisiana’s sole consumer advocacy/ environmental organization, and in this capacity plays a pivotal role in providing citizen input on energy-related issues. The organization is also credited with saving Louisiana electric and gas ratepayers over $1 billion since 1985.

The Alliance boasts many accomplishments in its 20 years of service. New Orleans journalist Errol Laborde wrote, "If there is a message from [Alliance success], it is that leadership is not always expressed by title or by wealth, but by hard work, intelligence and commitment, and by having a lot of heart...The Alliance is a splendid example of the power and impact of leadership at the grassroots level."

Former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, a past Advisory Committee member of the

Alliance, and under whose leadership the current Alliance director worked as the City’s Director of Environmental Affairs, publicly acknowledged that the Alliance "is indispensable to improving the quality of life in New Orleans.

The Alliance has created additional millions of dollars in benefits for New Orleanians though programs that lower utility bills and protect the environment by educating people about energy efficiency in their homes and businesses.

• From February 1993 through May 1996, at the behest of the Alliance, the New Orleans City Council (the body that regulates utilities within the City of New Orleans) instituted a "Least Cost" Energy Program that weatherized and insulated over 11,000 homes in New Orleans, primarily for low-income customers. Also in 1996, Alliance Executive Director Gary Groesch was honored by Governor Mike Foster and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for his work in helping to create Louisiana’s Energy Efficient Commercial Building Code.
  
  
• In 1999, the Alliance was selected as a contractor with the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR) to educate the public about the Home Energy Rebate Option (HERO) program—a $20 million energy efficiency fund (the largest in the United States) derived from the settlement of a federal lawsuit. LDNR estimates that 2,000 houses per year install energy improvements through the HERO program.
  
  
• In 2000 and 2001, the Alliance organized public meetings with other organizations to educate the public about the need for a Ratepayers Bill of Rights and a New Orleans Public Benefits Fund to help make electric and gas costs more affordable to all utility customers, especially low-income, through weatherization, education, and bill payment assistance programs. As a result of the Alliance's efforts, in 2001 the New Orleans City Council instituted a $6 million Public Benefits Fund and established a Ratepayers Bill of Rights.
  
  
• In 2004, after many meetings and much input from the Alliance and other organizations, the City Council enacted a permanently funded Energy Efficiency Program (NOEEP) for the City of New Orleans. Also, the Alliance, along with coalition partners, filed a statewide Public Benefits Fund proposal which is currently under consideration by the Louisiana Public Service Commission, the body that regulates utilities outside of the City of New Orleans.
  
  
• Also in 2004, the Alliance received recognition from the DOE’s Clean Cities Coalition for its work with Regional Planning Commission on fuel cell technology for buses, development of bicycle lanes and bike attachments to buses.
  
  

The Alliance owes its high level of achievement to many dedicated, ethnically and economically-diverse volunteers, interns, board members and advisory committee members who augment the work of the five person staff. The $300,000 annual budget is raised through individual contributions (10%), consulting services (20%) plus grants (60%) and corporate contributions (10%). The Alliance is adept at stretching its funding through leveraged grants.