Wednesday, April 29
U.S. Green Building Council Luncheon
Mayor Phil Gordon
U.S. Green Building Council Luncheon
Good afternoon and thank you for inviting me to spend a little time with you this afternoon at the Biltmore Resort.
Before I begin, there are some very special people in the audience that I would like to recognize. Today, we will be signing a partnership agreement with Dubai that will foster business between our cities and an exchange of scientific research, with a focus on solar and clean energy projects. Joining us today from the United Arab Emirates are:
- His Excellency, Hussain Nasser Lootah,
Director General of Dubai Municipality – incidentally, one of my fellow ASU alumni. Sorry Wildcats.
- Mr. Ismail Abdulrahman Al-Banna,
Director of Organizations and International Association Department – Dubai Municipality;
- Mr. Najib Mohamed Saleh Ahmed,
Head of Planning Research, Dubai Municipality.
- And Mr. Farhan Hasan Ali Al Marzouqi,
Head of Marketing and Exhibitions, Dubai Municipality.
It is our honor to be hosting you all.
This is an exciting time for the City of Phoenix. As most of you know, I’ve been spending a lot of time on airplanes these days, traveling to Washington, D.C. I’ve been working hard and diligently to secure funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Yesterday, the Corps of Engineers announced the city would receive its first competitive grant - $36.4 million for the Tres Rios project. To date, Phoenix has received more than $242 million from the stimulus, and there’s more on its way.
And all of that means thousands of new jobs that will be created and maintained – and those jobs include White Collar, Blue Collar and, now, Green collar jobs.
A few months ago during my State of the City address, I launched the City’s Green Phoenix Initiative, a 17-point plan to make Phoenix the first carbon neutral city in the country. I am thrilled to be here addressing this group of “Green” leaders to talk directly to you about our efforts.
I always enjoy selling “Green” concepts to people who aren’t yet convinced – a dwindling number to be sure. But from time to time, it sure is good to preach to the choir.
Not long ago ASU President Dr. Crow and I sat down in a face-to-face meeting with Energy Secretary Steven Chu to talk about the importance of renewable energy sources. We told him that Phoenix would lead – and we’ll do it with “Green Phoenix.” The Secretary endorsed our 17-point Green Phoenix Plan and made a special point of praising its comprehensive nature – quite frankly, he had never seen anything like it. From job training and retraining, to renewable energy sources, to greener neighborhoods, to weatherization, to solar, to water conservation – it’s everything Green.
Just this morning (and I hate it when people drop names) but just this morning Vice President Biden called to commend us for our efforts to build a Green Phoenix. I told him about how we have organized our stimulus efforts around our Green Phoenix initiative, and how we will use stimulus funds for large-scale solar installations, home weatherization, and habitat restorations.
The Vice President and I discussed the city’s proposed Green Phoenix Learning Campus – a partnership with Rio Salado College to establish a combined community college and charter high school focused on green collar jobs, training and retraining.
I told him about the Sky Train at the airport, a project that would create 5,900 jobs and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5,500 tons. It will remove a hundred buses and thousands of cars from the airport and its surrounding neighborhoods.
But the big thing I shared with him – and am announcing here for the very first time – is our Green Rail Corridor Demonstration Project – a project developed in partnership with ASU that will take a 10-mile stretch of the light rail corridor through the heart of the city – and turn it completely “Green”. This 6 square mile area will become a place where old buildings are weatherized and retrofitted, where new buildings produce more energy than they consume, where we will measurably reduce our carbon footprint and offset the current use of non-renewable energy.
That means, over time, even as commercial and residential density in this corridor dramatically increases, our carbon output and energy use will actually decline. And that’s a big deal. It will become a model that can be expanded throughout Phoenix – and throughout the entire country.
And that’s why Vice President Biden is smiling today.
While implementing the Green Phoenix Plan will take a lot of work, we’ve got the right people – the right organizations involved to get it done. I’ve asked the U.S. Green Building Council and Valley Forward Association to lead the Green Phoenix Panel, to assist in our efforts. Today I’m announcing that this Panel will be charged with advising Councilwoman Maria Baier’s Sustainability Subcommittee on how we can revise our zoning and building codes to build a more sustainable community. I’m also asking the Green Phoenix Panel to reach out to schools, churches, mosques, temples, businesses, and non profit agencies to develop “Green Best Practices” to motivate and educate our community on how together we can build a Green Phoenix.
So thank you again for inviting me to be with you today. We are thrilled to host the Greenbuild International Expo and Conference in November, and I look forward to seeing you all later this year.
Thank you all so much.