From the Apollo Alliance: Green Energy Updates

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From the Apollo Alliance: Green Energy Updates
In December 2007 Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which sought, for the first time, to address two of the three primary economic challenges of the century: energy security and climate change. Among other measures, the law promoted clean energy alternatives and established a green-collar job training program developed by the Apollo Alliance. The act also provided grants and loans to manufacturers to retool plants for clean energy products, encouraged higher mileage vehicles (particularly plug-in electric hybrids) and renewable fuels, increased energy efficiency standards in appliances, declared that all government buildings must significantly reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, and required that new government buildings be carbon-neutral by 2030.
This year new energy policies are taking shape in Washington. The Apollo Alliance, along with our broad partner network, is committed to advancing clean energy, good jobs policies well beyond the 2007 act, particularly in how it helps to address one another of our nation's greatest economic challenges: fixing the diminished condition of the American middle class.
Last week we launched Make It In America: The Apollo Green Manufacturing Action Plan, our broad-based national campaign to restore millions of American jobs and rebuild U.S. manufacturing capacity to meet the clean energy needs of the future.
Our action plan, or GreenMAP, is a comprehensive strategy to scale up production of American made clean energy systems and components while making U.S. factories more energy efficient. GreenMAP comes as the administration and Congress are considering policies - including a renewable energy standard and a carbon pricing program - that we are convinced will create unprecedented new demand for clean energy equipment and components.
Dozens of prominent clean energy companies, labor unions, environmental organizations, and clean energy trade associations helped to shape the national campaign's goal of increasing federal investment in domestic manufacturing of clean energy products.
The GreenMAP rollout also included our first-ever 30-second television advertisement, accompanied by a campaign to raise funds to ensure that it is widely aired in the Middle West. Robert Redford, a former member of the Apollo Alliance board and one of the country's most influential environmentalists, supported the campaign with a personal appeal.
You can help, too, with a generous donation by clicking the button on the left.
GreenMAP was the central, but not the only feature of our work last week to make the case for clean energy and good jobs. The Apollo Alliance also is a member of the national partnership that is promoting green-collar jobs and clean energy manufacturing in America's union halls as part of nationwide Earth Day celebrations next week. The eight-day Earth Day in the Union Halls campaign, which started on April 18, includes showing the award-winning documentary "The Greening of Southie" in over 70 union halls. The film tells the story of how South Boston came to embrace clean energy and energy efficiency, and built the city's first LEED-certified high-rise.
Our role in the partnership included posting a guide for how to find a green-collar job.
We didn't stop there. Our national field director, Ron Ruggiero, also worked with directors and staff members of our state and local Apollo Alliances in six states to support the GreenMAP campaign. The local and state groups visited district offices of House and Senate lawmakers, explained the campaign's goals, and had the opportunity to visit with Representative John Dingell (see pix left), a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, in his Michigan office.
Take care and talk to you again next week.
Yours,

Keith Schneider
Communications Director
Apollo Alliance
keith@apolloalliance.org


Keep it Green for a better future!

Dennis Spisak
Mahoning Valley Green Party
Ohio Green Party

www.ohiogreens.org

www.votespisak.org/thinkgreen/