This year’s gathering of the U.S. Conference of Mayors got to a rocky start this weekend in Providence, Rhode Island, where firemen across the state struck in support of the city's firefighters’ union  in their contract disputes with Mayor David Cicilline. Joe Biden, San Francisco’s Mayor Newsom and other scheduled speakers steered clear of the conference to avoid crossing the picket line. Conference president Mayor Nickels of Seattle had vowed he wouldn’t cross picket lines and whether he did or did not by entering the conference building was unclear—he says he didn’t,  the president of the union says he did.  

But while the strike seethed on, the conference raised other contentious issues, including a subtle but real change in its position on climate change that embarrassed Mayor Nickels and those who have worked to keep U.S. cities ahead of the federal government on greenhouse gas reduction policies.  In a resolution calling for the involvement of U.S. cities in the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference this December in Copenhagen, Lionel Rivera, the mayor of Colorado Springs, inserted an amendment that the U.S. delegation also seek caps from China, India, Brazil, Russia and nations in the E.U. among other industrialized and developing countries. Rivera, who opposes cap and trade, argued that under the proposed American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act his community will face an immediate ten percent rise in energy prices, money that he claimed would go to cities like Seattle that use hydropower. By the same logic, his amendment assumes other nations will benefit from U.S. losses created by the carbon market.  Visibly annoyed, Mayor Nickels pointed out that the conference has already come out in favor of cap and trade. Miguel Pulido, Mayor of Santa Ana, CA (and an eloquent supporter of clean energy), noted that we should be leading by example not lecturing developing countries before we’ve even agreed to real limits on carbon.

Another disputed resolution called for a study of how cities should be appropriately compensated for the bottling of municipal tap water, “a non-essential use of an essential and shared public resource.”  Don Robart, mayor of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, warned against attacking an industry that provided jobs while a recession is on. But Kevin Foy, mayor of Chapel Hill, NC, countered that it appeared hypocritical to impose water restrictions on residents while allowing bottlers to ship water out of state. In 2008, the conference banned bottled water from city meetings and offices.

Throughout the conference sessions, questions arose of how to secure funds from the stimulus package as well as ACES—and when it would be appropriate to do so. With ACES offering $4.5 billion for the smart grid, $5 billion for weatherization programs, $6.3 billion for energy efficiency programs and $2 billion for advanced battery manufacturing, the opportunities for city and states to create green jobs are plentiful. Overhead LED street lighting, one of the technologies on display, was widely embraced for the steep reductions in municipal electricity costs it offers. And the general sense that we cities must act quickly to reduce greenhouse gases is only boosted by the release of a U.S. government report confirming the need for clean energy.