Good Jobs and Clean Energy Update from the Apollo Alliance

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Good Jobs and Clean Energy Update from the Apollo Alliance

We're enthusiastic about many of the provisions of the energy and climate legislation introduced last week by Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey. The two lawmakers, respectively chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and chairman of the Environment Subcommittee, embraced key ideas about improving energy efficiency and spurring renewable energy initiatives that we proposed last year in The New Apollo Program.
The Waxman-Markey bill, for instance, calls for amending the national model building energy code and providing incentive funding to states to increase energy efficiency by 30 percent immediately, and 50 percent by 2016. The New Apollo Program proposed establishing a national energy efficiency commitment to reduce energy use in new and existing buildings at least 30 percent by 2025.
The Waxman-Markey bill calls for setting a federal Renewable Electricity Standard to generate 25 percent of the nation's power from clean and recycled sources of energy by 2025. We called for a similar commitment to scaling up renewable energy use in The New Apollo Program.
Angelides Praise and Concerns
Apollo Alliance Chairman Phil Angelides greeted news of the bill's formal introduction this way: "The Apollo Alliance applauds Chairmen Waxman and Markey for heeding Apollo's call for a bold clean energy agenda that responds to America's economic and security challenges while assisting displaced workers and low-income families as our nation transitions to a new energy economy."
But in his statement, Angelides also expressed the need to invest specifically in reviving American manufacturing and providing American workers more certainty and opportunity to land a good paying green-collar job.
"Putting millions of Americans back to work in good, green jobs and reclaiming control over our energy security will require us to invest in greening and re-tooling our manufacturing capacity to produce clean energy systems and components here in the U.S.," said Angelides.
In Washington A Focus on Good Green-Collar Jobs
At Apollo, we are focusing in on the need to ensure that American energy policy creates high-quality American jobs. The more than $100 billion in public funds that Congress and the White House appropriated last month for clean energy development won't mean much if it is spent on parts, tools, equipment, and products that aren't made in America by well-paid American workers. The Waxman-Markey proposal, and a number of similar pieces of clean energy and climate legislation taking shape in the Senate, do not do enough yet to revitalize manufacturing and to ensure that good wages and benefits for green-collar workers are a national priority.
Last week we dispatched Apollo President Jerome Ringo to testify on that point to members of the House Education and Labor subcommittee on Workforce Protections.
"The missing element is the supply side. We don't make most of the systems involved in producing clean energy," Ringo told the committee. "Fully half of America's existing wind turbines were manufactured overseas. And we rank fifth among countries that manufacture solar components, even though the solar cell was born in America. The fact that other countries are prepared to deliver these products - and we are not - means that every new American bill creating demand for renewable energy systems and energy efficiency services actually creates new jobs overseas, even though we have a robust manufacturing infrastructure and a skilled workforce. We have an incredible opportunity to strengthen and expand America's middle class by boosting our clean energy manufacturing sector."
Apollo's Green Manufacturing Plan
Last year we launched the Apollo Green Manufacturing Action Plan (GreenMAP). We brought together representatives from academia, industry, labor, and environmental groups to develop strategies for rebuilding domestic manufacturing for the growing clean energy economy. Members of this group include the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, the Solar Energy Industries Association, Environmental Defense Fund, the Alliance for American Manufacturing, the National Council for Advanced Manufacturing, the International Economic Development Council, Johnson Controls, Inc., General Motors, the Renewable Energy Policy Project, the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, and the Campaign for America's Future.
Over the next couple of weeks we'll roll out ideas for reviving manufacturing. And we're working with our partners to make sure those ideas are heard by the administration and Congress. We'll be asking you to get involved, and we'll be tracking progress for you on our Web site, in the Weekly Update, our Apollo Blog and the Daily Digest. As Phil Angelides noted in his statement last week: "The Apollo Alliance will be working with Congressional leaders to invest in America's manufacturing sector and ensure that the components and systems that are the backbone of the clean energy economy are not only invented and installed here, but made here as well."
Take care and talk to you again next week.
Yours,

Keith Schneider
Communications Director
Apollo Alliance

Good Jobs and a growing economy are possible through Green Power!

Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Green Party
Ohio Green Party

www.ohiogreens.org

www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/