House Energy Bill Follows Path Blazed By Apollo Alliance
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – The Apollo Alliance, a national coalition of business, labor, environmental and community leaders, today applauded the release of an energy bill that, if approved, will move America closer to a clean energy, good jobs economy. The legislation introduced today by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and Energy and Environment Subcommittee Edward Markey adopts many of the key initiatives put forward by the Apollo Alliance in its 2008 New Apollo Program.
Apollo Chairman Phil Angelides made the following statement:
“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.
“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. To that end, 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.”
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Apollo Research
Outside Research: General | Workforce Development | Clean Energy Corps | Job Quality Standards | Equity and Social Justice
Apollo Research |
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Highlights strategies for preparing a green-collar workforce. Economic development planners, |
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The Green Jobs Act, passed as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007,authorized $125 million per year in new workforce funds for the creation of an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Worker Training Program. The program has a specific focus on development of “pathways out of poverty” and into economic self-sufficiency. |
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The Green Manufacturing Economic Recovery Act proposes the creation of a loan program tosupport retooling of existing manufacturing facilities, or development of new facilities, to |
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Establishing programs to promote energy efficiency in buildings, both public and privately owned, provides an important opportunity to create quality green jobs. These jobs fall primarily within the construction sector, but also include materials manufacture, transportation, and supply chains. |
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Provisions and job consequences of the proposed Congressional bill. |
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Outside Research |
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Repowering jobs, businesses and investments across America. |
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The greening of the U.S. economy is not a dismantling of the past, but a new step forward - the next step in a continuous process of economic growth and transformation that began with industrialization and led us through the high-tech revolution. |
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Report outlines a green economic recovery program to strengthen the U.S. economy over the next two years and leave it in a better position for sustainable prosperity |
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Examines recent trends in manufacturing employment in seven states of the Great Lakes manufacturing belt and in the 25 largest manufacturing-dependent metropolitan areas. |
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Workforce Development |
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A new report links quality apprenticeship programs in the building trades to the future of California’s green economy and lifting low-income families out of poverty. |
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Clean Energy Corps |
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America as a whole is suffering through a deep economic recession, with job losses and extreme levels of wealth inequality, rising energy prices and energy insecurity, and an increasing scarcity of hope and common purpose. Americans are looking for solutions on climate, energy and the economy. To address these intersecting challenges, we propose a national Clean Energy Corps (CEC). The CEC will be a combined service, training, and job creation effort to combat global warming, grow local and regional economies and demonstrate the equity and employment promise of the clean energy economy. |
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Job Quality Standards |
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Equity and Social Justice |
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By now, virtually all Americans concur that climate change is real. Equally real is the “Climate Gap” – the sometimes hidden and often unequal impact climate change will have on people of color and the poor in the United States. This report helps to document the Climate Gap, connecting the dots between research on heat waves, air quality, and other challenges associated with climate change. This report also explores how we might best combine efforts to both solve climate change and close the Climate Gap. |
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To offset the higher energy and other prices low-income families and individuals will face because of climate-change legislation, policymakers need to deliver assistance in ways that are effective, efficient, and consistent with energy conservation goals. |
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This report serves to advise the Governor on ongoing opportunities to address global warming locally while growing Wisconsin’s economy, creating new jobs, and utilizing an appropriate mix of fuels and technologies in Wisconsin’s energy and transportation portfolios. |
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Understanding Climate Change: An Equitable Framework This report contributes to a deeper understanding of climate change issues, and considers the equity consequences and implications associated with global warming. The report describes: The scale of the challenge; why equity advocates should care; the relationship between climate change and air pollution; energy production, climate justice, and the climate policy debate; and opportunities and challenges to address climate change and promote equity. Each chapter concludes with a resource guide that identifies additional sources of information. |
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Apollo Alliance And Blue Green Alliance Join Forces In Call For Millions Of New, Green, American Manufacturing Jobs
San Francisco, CA – The Apollo Alliance, a national coalition of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders, today applauded the Blue Green Alliance (BGA) for developing clear principles to put Americans back to work in good, green-collar jobs while curbing climate change. BGA’s principles echo the clean energy and good jobs strategy the Apollo Alliance proposed in its 2008 New Apollo Program. Phil Angelides, Apollo Alliance chairman, made the following statement:
“Even at a time when economic conditions are downright icy, we can’t lose sight of the fact that our planet is heating up. Growing made-in-America clean energy solutions will be a win for the economy, a win for working families, and a win for the planet.
“To meet the ambitious goals put forward by both the Apollo Alliance and the Blue Green Alliance, we must invest in greening and re-tooling our manufacturing capacity to produce clean energy systems and components here in the U.S. The Apollo Alliance will be working with leaders in Washington and across the country to advance our ‘Green Manufacturing Action Plan’ to revitalize America’s manufacturing sector, make our country the world’s leader in clean energy production, and reclaim control over our energy security.”
Apollo Weekly Update, 3/27/09: Administration’s First Clean Energy Investment, Pennsylvania’s Success
Though it wasn’t money from the just-passed stimulus bill, the Obama administration this week made its first big investment in renewable energy and good green-collar jobs. The Department of Energy, under a $40 billion clean energy loan guarantee program that the prior administration never used, awarded a $535 million loan guarantee to Solyndra Inc., Solyndra is a four-year-old California-based maker of cylindrical solar photovoltaic generating systems that has a state of the art manufacturing plant in Fremont, California.
Apollo President’s Tireless Pursuit of New Energy Economy
Like other nationally prominent public interest leaders, Apollo Alliance President Jerome Ringo spent a few days after Barack Obama’s election considering its full meaning. It wasn’t just that the new president was African American like himself. It was also that President Obama had campaigned and won on almost precisely the same call for a clean energy, good jobs economic transition that Ringo has championed for the Apollo Alliance from one end of America to the other.
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Apollo Research |
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Governments, banks, and private investors around the world are furiously pumping capital into renewable energy, research and development, and clean energy manufacturing. |
Outside Research |
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The rate at which the United States is able to develop and deploy new energy technologies will, to a great extent, determine the ultimate speed and cost of the economic transformation. Large-scale carbon capture and sequestration, advanced batteries, plug-in hybrid vehicle technologies, next-generation biofuels for the transportation sector, and a number of other innovations will be vital to achieving a low-carbon economy, and the United States must not only develop but deploy these technologies. |
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Report examines investment trends in research and development in the energy sector. |
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Economic studies conducted before the information-technology revolution have shown that as much as 85% of measured growth in US income per capita was due to technological change. Can America repeat this performance? |
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New research by Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) and the Cleantech Venture Network shows continued strong growth in the U.S. cleantech |
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Apollo Research |
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Energy efficiency is one of the tools in The New Apollo Program toolbox that will create a clean energy, good jobs economy. And it’s a big tool, one that offers great opportunity. By 2035, three-quarters of U.S. buildings will be either new or substantially renovated. And energy efficiency pays for itself with energy savings and creates high-quality jobs. |
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RPS requirements slowly increase over time, creating a stable market that avoids boom and bust cycles and gives energy companies the certainty they need to invest in new technologies. |
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Outside Research |
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Provides an overview of the health and safety issues faced by the solar PV industry, including the toxic materials used in manufacturing and the potential end-of-life disposal hazards of solar PV products. The report also lays out recommendations to immediately address these problems to build a safe, sustainable, and just solar energy industry. |
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Combined Heat and Power (CHP) solutions represent a proven and effective near-term energy option to help the United States enhance energy efficiency, ensure environmental quality, promote economic growth, and foster a robust energy infrastructure. |
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Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, September 2008 |
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Indispensable compendium of useful facts and data about renewable energy power generation, industry trends, and outlook. |
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Energy Department assessment of nation’s capacity to generate 20 percent of its power from wind within 22 years. |
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Analysis suggests that, to comply with the twin 25-by-25 mandates, it will be necessary for electricity and motor fuel producers to dramatically increase their use of technologies that play a relatively small role in today’s energy markets. |
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American Public Transportation Association, |
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The U.S. electric grid is a complex network of independently owned and operated power plants and transmission lines. Aging infrastructure, combined with a rise in domestic electricity consumption, has forced experts to critically examine the status and health of the nation’s electrical systems. |
Taking the Red Tape Out of Green Power
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Outside Research |
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The pay and productivity of blue-collar workers in manufacturing are clearly not a competitive drag. In fact, these workers actually earn lower wages than many of the most important U.S. trading partners while simultaneously posting higher productivity levels. |
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Researchers study five very different carbon-reducing technologies-LED lighting, high- performance windows, auxiliary power units for trucks, concentrating solar power, and Super Soil Systems (a new method for treating hog wastes). |
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Research paper proposes policies that promote a “high-road” production process. Through coordination with highly skilled workers and suppliers, firms achieve high rates of innovation, quality, and fast response to unexpected situations. |
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Examines recent trends in manufacturing employment in seven states of the Great Lakes manufacturing belt and in the 25 largest manufacturing-dependent metropolitan areas. |
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Outside Research |
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This report contributes to the better understanding of the implications of enacting a climate policy for the energy-intensive manufacturing sector. The objective is to examine the impacts of energy price changes resulting from carbon-pricing policies on the competitiveness of five energy-intensive industries. |
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A cap-and-trade system, when done right, enforces an economy-wide limit on greenhouse gas emissions; sets realistic goals and commonsense rules for reducing emissions over time; and harnesses the creativity and dynamism of the market to achieve these goals. This primer reviews various ways of designing a cap-and-trade system. The Governor’s Task Force on Global Warming is concerned that appropriate and necessary steps to impact the problem of global warming in Wisconsin will have an adverse effect on Wisconsin’s low income residents. These households are already struggling to become economically self-sufficient and doing so under mixed conditions, depending on their employment skills, local job markets, rural or urban residence, educational opportunities, family size, and other conditions. |
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Deliberations on cap-and-trade legislation have so far focused principally on reduction targets, timetables, and where to implement the emissions cap. Another critical question is still unfolding: whether emissions permits should be freely allocated or auctioned, and who will benefit from this process. |
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The economic and environmental effects of a cap-and-trade system depend on its features within a particular country, and also on activities in other countries through the influence of trade in energy, non-energy goods and emissions allowances. |
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The economic and environmental effects of a cap-and-trade system depend on its features within a particular country, and also on activities in other countries through the influence of trade in energy, non-energy goods and emissions allowances. |
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A comprehensive report prepared by Good Jobs First, with significant contributions from the Apollo Alliance, presents considerable evidence that although a number of clean energy sector companies are cooperating with unions and providing wages, many more are not even though they receive public subsidies that require employers to pay the prevailing wage. |
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Getting hired into a green-collar job can build a successful career. Here is how to find a green-collar job and what kind of occupations will exist and now exist in the clean energy sector. |
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Green-Collar Jobs in America’s Cities
A coalition of non-profit environmental and economic research organizations from across the country today released a first-of-its kind guide to cities and states to enhance one critical component of America’s shared prosperity. The new guide, “Green-Collar Jobs in America’s Cities,” was made public at the start of the two-day national Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference in Pittsburgh. It makes a strong case that pursuing a four-step strategy – essentially a metropolitan green business and jobs development plan – provides a wealth of environmental, economic, and social benefits. |
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America as a whole is suffering through a deep economic recession, with job losses and extreme levels of wealth inequality, rising energy prices and energy insecurity, and an increasing scarcity of hope and common purpose. Americans are looking for solutions on climate, energy and the economy. To address these intersecting challenges, we propose a national Clean Energy Corps (CEC). The CEC will be a combined service, training, and job creation effort to combat global warming, grow local and regional economies and demonstrate the equity and employment promise of the clean energy economy. |
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Greener Pathways: Jobs And Workforce Development In The Clean Energy Economy
Broadly defined, “green jobs” is not a salient category for policy innovation or workforce training. To make real progress on economic and workforce development in the new energy economy, we must focus more carefully on key clean energy sectors. Greener Pathways does just that, by detailing current economic and workforce development opportunities in three leading industries: energy efficiency, wind, and biofuels. The report also examines federal resources that can support state green jobs initiatives, including programs in the Departments of Energy and Labor, and the Green Jobs Act included in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. We conclude by outlining a plan of action for state policymakers, highlighting policy, program, and system reform opportunities to embrace the greener and more equitable promise of the new energy economy. |
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Greener Pathways: Executive Summary
Congress and on the campaign trail—people are talking about the economic promise of clean energy. Greener Pathways puts jobs at the heart of this animated national conversation. |
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Community Jobs in the Green Economy
Every city and community in the United States has some potential to capitalize on the clean energy economy through good wind or solar resources or through retrofit programs to bring old, dilapidated buildings up to energy efficiency codes. The Apollo Alliance and Urban Habitat are committed to fighting for a clean energy future that benefits not only businesses and the environment, but also workers and low-income communities. |
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This signature Apollo jobs report describes how a massive investment in Apollo’s ten-point plan would lead to over 3 million new green-collar jobs, stimulate $1.4 trillion in new GDP, add billions in personal income and retail sales, and produce $284 billion in net energy savings – all while generating sufficient returns to the U.S. treasury to pay for itself over ten years. |
Environmental Defense Fund, September 2008 
2008
