Environment California, an influential environmental group, urged President-elect Barak Obama on Thursday to make "green" energy and "green" infrastructure a cornerstone of his economic stimulus plan.

If the federal government invested US$142 billion in clean energy and transportation, 3 million jobs would be created or sustained and global warming would be reduced, the group said in a report entitled "Clean Energy, Bright Future."

The report recommends that the federal government help build energy-efficient buildings and vehicles, expand Clean Renewable Energy Bonds, expand home weatherization programs and install solar panels on the rooftops of schools and government buildings.

The group also called for new public transportation projects, infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians and more anti-idling truck programs.

If all these recommendations were carried out, America's global warming producing pollution would be reduced by 10 percent and the equivalent of 170 coal-fired power plants would be replaced, the report noted.

"America is at a crossroads on energy. If we continue with business as usual -- dirty energy and highways to nowhere -- we will be laying the groundwork for decades of increased global warming pollution," Jeremy Mills with Environment California told a press conference here.

"We should, instead, choose a path to a new energy economy," he said.

New energy industries "can meet the challenge of creating these jobs over the next decade or the course of the next few years," he said.

"We have to do something with regards to addressing the issue of global warming and the main way of doing that is to address the way we produce energy in this country and the way that we move ourselves around," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency January 16, 2009)