It may not be the most obvious way to stimulate the economy, but Craig Silvertooth is hoping lawmakers recognize the value of insulation when they craft a massive recovery package.

Silvertooth, executive director of the Center for Environmental Innovation in Roofing, is among the legion of lobbyists marching to Capitol Hill in normally quiet recess weeks to claim some portion of a stimulus that Democrats now say could be worth $700 billion over two years.

Those energy savings will provide businesses with more money to invest elsewhere. What’s more, the incentives will support the industries and workers that make the insulation and the roofers that would install it.

It is, by Silvertooth’s count, a win-win-win. Even so, he won’t be alone in asking for aid in these lean economic times.

“There will be a lot of hands out over the next couple of months,” he said.

What is widely considered to be the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression is generating talk of government spending on an order not seen since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. There were more hands in need of help back then, with as much as one-quarter of the adult population out of work. But there may actually be more hands asking for help now, as interest groups send scores of lobbyists to Capitol Hill in hopes of securing support for projects that they see as helpful to the economy.

Mayors, green-tech advocates, homebuilders and construction workers have all sent in suggestions. The assortment of interests eyeing some government help is worrying to some spending watchdogs, whose members fear the money will be spent on projects that don’t provide the quick jolt to the economy a stimulus is intended to provide.

It seems certain that Washington will appropriate billions of dollars more in public investments, with Democrats in firmer control of Congress and President-elect Barack Obama calling for quick passage of a large new stimulus bill. Leading Democrats, including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), said their goal is to have Obama sign a stimulus bill into law on the day he takes office.

There is no shortage of ideas on how Congress should allocate the billions of dollars. The United States Conference of Mayors has written a Main Street Stimulus plan. The proposal calls for $90 billion in support for community block grants, clean energy programs and school and public housing construction efforts.

Transportation for America, an umbrella group that promotes a cleaner transportation system, sent a wish list to Capitol Hill last week that includes $18 billion to fix bridges and roads, $4.8 billion in subsidies for transit programs, $8 billion to replace aging buses with “clean energy” vehicles and $1.2 billion for bike and walking paths.

“This will boost the economy by putting more people back to work,” said Colin Peppard, of the group Friends of the Earth, which was one of the 146 federal and state groups that signed the letter.

Much of the focus of the new stimulus won’t be just on kick-starting the economy but on kick-starting a cleaner one. During the campaign, Obama promised to spend $150 billion over 10 years on green initiatives.

Last week, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said she would introduce a bill to make Obama’s plans a reality. She said she was open to moving the bill as part of a stimulus.