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Breakthrough Initiatives to Reinvent AmericaA new agenda should speak to core American values and a vision of the future -- not technical policies and "issues." Most Americans are bored by politics because it doesn't speak to what really matters in their lives: how they work and how they live.
Over the past several years, the Breakthrough Institute, often in partnership with others, has developed a set of Strategic Initiatives that emerge from core American values and speak to a positive future. A Strategic Initiative should create new alliances that go beyond the traditional left-right divide and change the way people think about "the issues." 
Renewing America's economy, reducing the threat of global climate change, and finally securing the nation's energy independence all compel the transformation of the U.S. energy system. The nation that moves first to develop and harness new energy technologies will take the lead in the next powerful growth sector of the 21st century. Meeting this imperative and capturing the energy opportunity requires new federal policies to rapidly develop and deploy clean, affordable, and scalable U.S. energy technologies. It is time to invest in new American energy and make clean energy cheap.
Public investment is the cornerstone of an effective strategy for American energy transformation. Comprehensive climate and energy legislation should include major public investments to promote clean energy innovation, accelerate the development and deployment of clean energy technologies, and catalyze American energy industries. Major, strategic public investment can change America's energy future and must be part of any effective climate and energy policy. A strategy to make clean energy cheap begins with a dramatic increase in energy R&D investments -- on the scale of $15 billion annually in the U.S. and much more globally -- aimed at creating a new generation of affordable clean energy technologies and driving major cost reductions in existing technologies through breakthroughs in materials, production methods and more. To take technologies from the lab to the marketplace, this strategy must also support the commercial-scale demonstration of first-of-its-kind technologies. Public investments on the scale of $5 billion annually could, when combined with private sector investment, accelerate the critical but high-risk demonstration of a whole portfolio of new technologies -- including next-generation nuclear reactors, carbon capture and storage technologies, floating deep water offshore wind turbine designs, new wave and tidal power technologies, cellulosic ethanol production methods and advanced/engineered geothermal energy techniques. And since carbon prices alone cannot pull more costly emerging clean energy sources into the marketplace, a strategy to make clean energy cheap must also include major direct investments to drive the deployment of emerging clean energy technologies. We should commit roughly $30 billion annually to directly buy down the cost of clean energy technologies in the early stages of commercialization. Key Documents:
Ten years later it has become clear that the law had worked in motivating former welfare recipients to go back to work. What it didn't do was create the conditions for former welfare recipients to climb out of poverty. What's needed is new legislation that helps the poorest Americans get a fresh start. Americans who work should not be denied health care, day care, or retirement security simply for lack of money. Fresh Start legislation would establish a new social contract and achieve the goal of welfare reform: to truly reward work.
Key Documents:
Whatever you think about its causes or its solutions, one thing we can all agree on is that we had better prepare for it. We know that Greenland's glaciers are melting. We know that the north Atlantic Gulf Stream that brings warm water to the northern hemisphere has slowed by 30 percent since 1992. We know that surface ocean temperatures are getting warmer, and we know warmer oceans more severe hurricanes. More ominously, a recent Pentagon "future scenarios" report concluded that global warming could trigger and exacerbate wars over water. There's no more time for twisting our hands and having political arguments. What's needed is a national Global Warming Preparedness Act that requires every federal and state agency to report on and prepare for global warming disasters. The Act should also require global warming disclosure so that investors can properly evaluate risk.
Key Documents:
The Healthy Generation initiative would restore physical education to every grade in every school and improve the nutritional quality of the school lunch program. It would ban junk food advertising to children and instead create a national advertising campaign to help parents and children learn good eating habits, reduce TV watching, and be more physically active. To make sure every child gets the basic health care and preventive care they need to stay healthy, existing health insurance programs would be expanded to cover all American children who currently lack health coverage.
This antiquated system of energy generation makes us vulnerable to blackouts and natural disasters. The good news is that the millions of Americans who own their own homes can make, and store, their own electricity. Solar today in many parts of the country is competitive with natural gas at peak hours - the daylight hours when electricity is most in demand. The problem is that the utilities are blocking the American people's right to make their own electricity and sell it on a free market.
The grid doesn't belong to the utilities - it belongs to the American people. It was built by our parents and grandparents. Energy utilities must no longer be allowed to stifle entrepreneurialism by blocking Americans from selling their home-generated solar energy onto the grid. We need a Homeowners Power Act that allows home power generators to finance the cost of buying and installing solar panels by borrowing against future earnings from selling home-produced energy, and requires utilities to let homeowners sell the energy they produce onto the grid.
The first two years of life are critical to brain development. Early-childhood education is crucial to helping children to achieve their full potential - and stay on the right track as teenagers. We need a Motherhood Tax Credit - available to all American parents. The annual credit would be enough subsidize either parent to stay home with their child for up to two years. This initiative has the potential to bring together conservative and liberal Americans around supporting families.
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