Carter-era solar panel won’t return to the roof of the White House

The Obama administration has rebuffed climate activist Bill McKibben’s bid for re-installation of a White House solar panel put up by President Jimmy Carter and taken down under President Ronald Reagan, according to news accounts.

McKibben, co-founder of the group 350.org, had taken the panel to Washington, D.C., from Maine – where it was stored – with a group of college students. But administration officials who met with McKibben Friday apparently declined the request to put the panel up.

“They explained that there were various reasons that the White House roof was not available for a gesture with very little energy-saving potential and that the Obama administration was doing more to promote renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions than any previous government,” the New York Times reports.

“They refused to take the Carter-era panel that we brought with us and said they would continue their deliberative process to figure out what is appropriate for the White House someday. I told them it would be nice to deliberate as fast as possible, since that is the rate at which the planet’s climate is deteriorating,” McKibben told the paper.