IntroductionThe purpose of this document is to review Department of Energy (DOE) programs and recommend future directions for U.S. policy to address President Obama's desire to save the our planet from climate change and reduce dependence on oil (Roberts, Lassiter and Nanda, 2010, p 4). The context of this review follows the election of President Obama in 2008 and the enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) in February 2009. This paper will evaluate the effectiveness of measures implemented by the law and compare their effectiveness with an alternative carbon tax implementation strategy, then make a recommendation as to which strategy would achieve the President's goals given the political, economic, and environmental situation he faced. Key ChallengeThe key challenge facing US policy is reducing greenhouse gases while growing the economy. The Recovery Act spending acted as a stimulus package to revive an economy heavily affected by the global financial crisis (Aldy, 2012 p 3). While recovery funds aimed to stimulate the economy, President Obama highlighted the importance of renewable energy development in his first State of the Union address (Roberts, Lassiter, & Nanda, 2010 p 3). Policy Options The two policy options I will outline consider continuing the current stimulus package or introducing a carbon tax. Both policies would be effective in achieving the President's goal of reducing negative effects on the environment and growing the economy, albeit through different mechanisms. There are other policy options such as cap and trade systems, market dependence and government sponsored research programs (Frank, Jennings & Bernanke 2009 pp 328-329) ...... middle of paper ...... y , J & Common, M 2003, Natural Resources and Environmental Economics, 3rd edition, Addison-Wesley. Chapter 2, The Origins of the Sustainability Problem.Perry, TD 2010, Ampulse Corporation: A Case Study on Technology Transfer in US Department of Energy Laboratories, National Renewable Energy Laboratory Altira Group Colorado.Quasem, AA, Jafaar, AH & Chamhuri, S 2010, "Climate change mitigation and political concern for priority setting", International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management, vol. 2, No 4, Emerald Group Publishing, Bingley, UK. Roberts, MJ, Lassiter, JB & Nanda, R 2010, US Department of Energy & Recovery Act Funding: Bridging the “Valley of Death”, Harvard Business School, Cambridge, USA .Stern, DI 2004, 'The rise and fall of the environmental Kuznets curve', World Development, vol. 32 no. 8, pp 1419-1439, Elsevier, Maryland, United States.