Weekly Wrap Up: America’s Best Kept Secret

Posted by White House

A quick look at the week of October 4th, 2010:

America’s Best Kept Secret: At the first ever White House Summit on Community Colleges, Dr. Jill Biden and President Obama emphasize the importance of providing all students access to a quality higher education. Not to be missed: A video featuring community college grads, including Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and, yes, even Billy Crystal. http://wh.gov/3D4

West Wing Week: "A Farewell to Rahm" Video: http://wh.gov/3Dx

Notable Number: 64,000. More on the employment situation in September: http://wh.gov/3bc

Approved: One week after President Obama signed the Small Business Jobs Act, nearly 2,000 small business owners who had been waiting for loans are approved and will soon have loan funds – totaling nearly $1 billion – in hand. http://wh.gov/3YQ

The White House Goes Solar: As we move toward a clean energy economy, the White House is leading by example. Energy Secretary Chu announces, “by the end of this spring, there will be solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the roof of the White House.” http://huff.to/c7sZtb

Epic Tweet: NASA: Hubble Space Telescope vs asteriod. Cosmic battle? http://go.usa.gov/ag0

Video: Elizabeth Warren, who’s standing up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, talks transparency on PBS news hour, “This is about making sure that families have the power to make good decisions, that they can see the contracts, they can see what the stuff costs, and they can get a competitive market to start working for them.” http://to.pbs.org/aAgCYP

Take it from Abe: Administrator Craig Fugate with Nationals racing president Abe share simple steps to save lives during Fire Prevention Week. http://bit.ly/cBVbpp

Not Signing It: President Obama will not sign H.R. 3808, the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer explains: http://wh.gov/3T1

Favorite photo: A curtsey in the Oval.

Obama Administration Officials Continue to Visit State Fairs

Posted by White House

Building on the President’s commitment to address issues important to rural Americans, Cabinet Secretaries and other top Administration officials are visiting state fairs this summer and fall to discuss ongoing efforts to:

• Support job creation;
• Improve access to health care;
• Enhance the quality of rural education and;
• Help strengthen rural America by working better with communities, states and the federal government.

Cabinet Secretaries and Administration officials have been talking to 4-H and Future Farmers of America students, seeing solar panels on a stick and checking out best in show dairy cows. Read more about the State Fair visits so far:

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visits the Delaware State Fair:
Reaching Out to Rural America: Meeting with Students at the Delaware State Fair (July 26, 2010)

Deputy Transportation Secretary John Porcari visits the Ohio State Fair:
Summertime Means Construction, Jobs for Ohioans (July 28, 2010)

USTR Ambassador Ron Kirk visits the Maine State Fair:
Grown Locally and Sold Globally: Creating Jobs Through Agricultural Exports (August 6, 2010)

USDA Under Secretary Kevin Concannon visits the Wisconsin State Fair:
A Blue Ribbon in the Fight to Feed the Hungry (August 11, 2010)

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson visits the Wisconsin State Fair:
American Tradition and Rural Innovation at the Wisconsin State Fair (August 12, 2010)

Here’s what’s coming up this week:

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at the Iowa State Fair
Penningroth Media Center, Cattle Barn
Des Moines, Iowa
Tuesday, August 17, 10:00 AM CDT to 11:00 AM CDT

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will return to his home state of Iowa to attend one of the oldest and largest agricultural and industrial expositions in the country. Secretary Vilsack will participate in a round table discussion with local farmers and agricultural leaders to highlight the Administration’s efforts to rebuild and revitalize rural America.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood at the Illinois State Fair
Illinois State Fairgrounds, 801 Sangamon Avenue
Springfield, IL
Friday, August 20, 10:00 AM CDT to 11:30 AM CDT

As part of the Illinois State Fair “Futures for Kids Day,” Secretary LaHood will join law enforcement and traffic safety advocates for the 2010 kickoff of Operation Teen Safe Driving Illinois. Secretary Lahood will tour agricultural exhibits, visit the Illinois State Police Tent, and meet with high school students who have been helping to spread the word about the dangers of distracted driving. The Illinois State Fair, which is operated by the Illinois Department of Agriculture, attracted more than 700,000 visitors in 2009. The fair has been entertaining families and showcasing Illinois agriculture almost every year since its opening in 1853.

Small Business Administration (SBA) Deputy Administrator Marie Johns at the Indiana State Fair
Indiana State Fairgrounds (In front of the Hoosier Lottery Grandstand), 1202 East 38th Street
Indianapolis, IN
Wednesday August 18, 8:30 AM CDT to 10 AM CDT

At the Indiana State Fair’s “Farmer’s Day,” Small Business Administration (SBA) Deputy Administrator Marie Johns will attend the Indiana Farm Bureau’s Old-Fashioned Pancake Breakfast to benefit the Indiana FFA Foundation. Deputy Administrator Johns will also meet youth involved in the state’s FFA and 4-H programs for a tour of their project exhibits and discussion on youth entrepreneurship.

Stay tuned for blog posts and photos from upcoming State Fair visits on the White House blog.

Building Our Cities Greener

Posted by White House

Earlier this week, we took another big step forward in the Obama Administration’s efforts to encourage more sustainable development as we announced $100 million for our new Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant program to encourage regions to integrate economic development, land use, and transportation investments – which will help to tie the quality and location of housing to broader opportunities such as access to good jobs, quality schools, and safe streets. For all the implications of “sprawl”—from job loss, economic decline and segregation, to obesity, asthma rates, to climate change and our dangerous dependence on foreign oil—all of them share by one fundamental problem: the mismatch between where we live and where we work. Whatever else we do to address these problems, America must find a way to connect housing to jobs. And Americans are demanding it. Today, the average household spends more than half of its budget on housing and transportation.
They have become American families’ two single biggest expenses. During the housing boom, real estate agents suggested to families that couldn’t afford to live near job centers that they could find a more affordable home by living farther away. Lenders bought into the “Drive to Qualify” myth as well – giving easy credit to homebuyers without accounting for how much it might cost families to live in these areas or the risk they could pose to the market. And then, an odd thing happened when these families moved in – they found themselves driving dozens of miles to work, to school, to the movies, to the grocery store, spending hours in traffic and spending nearly as much to fill their gas tank as they were to pay their mortgage...and in some places, more. In addition to adding to families’ budgets and time, it is also contributing to increased carbon emissions and pollution. In all, in the last century, transportation costs as a share of household expenditures have increased by a thousand percent.

In February, HUD launched our new Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities – allowing us to work directly with communities to support innovative planning and practice at the local level and helping to coordinate our investments with other agencies at the federal level. In particular, HUD formed a Sustainability Partnership with the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency. When it comes to housing, environmental and transportation policy, the Federal government must speak with one voice. This is an example of how we’re changing the way we do business across the Administration – working not at cross purposes in our silos, but together, in common purpose

Of course, as critical as regional planning is, the hard work of implementing plans happens at the local level.

That’s why our $40 million Sustainable Communities Challenge Planning Grant program is targeted to cities and towns. I announced this program earlier this week in conjunction with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in a joint grant program that includes up to $35 million for its “TIGER II” planning grant program.

Where the Transportation program will fund planning activities that relate directly to a future transportation capital investment, HUD’s program will fund land-use related planning activities and affordable housing strategies that will be linked to that investment. This funding will make it possible for communities to hire staff with the expertise needed to remove barriers communities face to sustainable development.

The goal of each of these efforts—at the regional level, at the community level and at the neighborhood level—is the same: to advance our shared priorities and values as Americans for the decades to come.Priorities like jobs for the 21st century – located closer to where we live, so businesses spend less money moving goods and services and people can spend less time commuting and more time with family.Values like healthier, more inclusive communities – with neighborhoods where kids can play outside and breathe clean air.

Communities where opportunities for people of all ages, incomes, races and ethnicities are never determined by their zip code.These are the kinds of communities we all want our children to grow up in.If, in this new century, we grow our communities and our economies out of this fundamental principle, then I have no doubt our America and our children’s America will be a strong, prosperous America infused with the same sense of purpose, opportunity and resolve that have always defined us.