Area leaders are enthusiastically backing a national campaign to pour $100 billion worth of tax dollars in green technology -- a move advocates say would create scores of jobs, help rejuvenate the economy and curb climate change.

A bevy of private and public leaders on Tuesday added their voices to campaign to pressure Congress for national energy policy changes and new money for transportation, energy and building projects.

The goal: jobs.

The Natural Resource Defense Council, Pew Environment Group and Virginia League of Conservation Voters are inviting citizens and leaders to read a new report that says $100 billion could stimulate the creation of 2 million jobs, 56,000 of them in Virginia.

The report, "Green Recovery," was written by researchers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and released by labor and environmental groups.

"Congress should move quickly to enact legislation that will drive investments by making clean technologies more profitable than polluting ones, stimulating our economy and creating clean energy jobs that draw on current work force skills and cannot be outsourced," a news release said.

Specifically, advocates are looking to federal lawmakers for $46 billion to expand mass transit, enhance the freight rail system, discover new forms of renewable energy and modernize public buildings; $50 billion in tax credits to encourage businesses and homeowners to makes homes and workplaces energy efficient; and $4 billion to guarantee loans for such projects.

"Things aren't going to happen till there are more government incentives out there," said Lee Wilhelm, president of Roanoke-based Green Roofs of Virginia.

Joan Washburn, a Roanoke area political consultant, said she was hired by the Natural Resources Defense Council to spread word of the report and its message across Virginia.

Her message to elected leaders when she travels to Washington this week for debates on related legislation will be, "we need a commitment," she said.

Stan Breakell, president of Breakell Inc., a Roanoke construction firm, said future investments should include job training to raise the proficiency of skilled tradespeople to handle more of the latest energy-efficient technology, such as advanced cooling and heating systems.

He said he is looking for building-energy analysts and can't find sufficient numbers. Such investments would surely spawn jobs, he said.

"If it was me, I'd make Roanoke the most sustainable community and let it be an economic development tool. Green is the greatest economic development tool this valley and Virginia has on its menu," he said.

Many people in Western Virginia consider the area a green-minded region because real estate owners are constructing and retrofitting energy-efficient buildings in various communities, cyclists and others are enjoying an expanding greenway system in Roanoke, and Norfolk Southern Corp. intends to build an intermodal freight yard in Elliston. Rail is considered a greener alternative to trucks on highways.

Officials gathered Tuesday at the Claude Moore Education Complex, an annex of the Roanoke Higher Education Center which was recently awarded a gold rating in the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED program, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

By virtue of its gold status, the complex is "the greenest building in Western Virginia," master of ceremonies Rupert Cutler said.