Apollo Releases New Reports about Green Career Training in Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin
This week, the Apollo Alliance released a series of reports in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin that identify components of those states’ workforce development infrastructures that can be better integrated and scaled up to help fill jobs in the clean energy sector. As readers of the weekly update are well aware, over the past decade, clean energy jobs have grown at more than twice the rate of overall jobs, according to a study released last June by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
The reports, Mapping Green Career Pathways: Job Training Opportunities and Infrastructure, recommend strengthening existing training infrastructures to build workers’ skills to fill green-collar jobs that are being created in the construction and manufacturing sectors, which are projected to account for 55 percent of all new jobs in the emerging renewable energy and efficiency industries. Overall employment in construction and manufacturing declined sharply over the past decade and has been particularly hard hit by the recession. Ohio lost 106,000 manufacturing jobs and 31,000 construction jobs last year; Michigan shed 94,000 manufacturing jobs and 31,000 construction jobs in 2009; and Wisconsin has lost more than 25 percent of its manufacturing jobs since 2000.
“The demand for clean energy workers is real and will only grow as federal, regional and state climate and energy policies move forward,” said Elena Foshay, research associate for the Apollo Alliance and a co-author of the report. “However, for these states to take full advantage of this job creation potential, they will need workers whose skills match the needs of the employers and industries of the clean energy economy.”
Mapping Green Career Pathways identifies existing training programs that represent key elements of an integrated green workforce development system. According to the reports, many of the elements of a green training infrastructure already exist in each state, but there are still gaps along the green career pathway that must be filled through stronger, more integrated training programs.
On a telephone press conference announcing the release of the Michigan report, Ken Gawlak, a former General Motors worker, described how the report’s findings relate directly to his experience. He was laid off after working for GM for ten years and decided to explore other career options by talking to counselors at his local community college, Delta College. They recommended that Gawlak enroll in a new training program the college created in collaboration with three local solar companies that were having trouble filling chemical process operator positions. His tuition was paid for by a new program in Michigan called No Worker Left Behind.
After completing a 16-week course, Gawlak got a job working at Dow Corning in solar manufacturing. “Out of the 23 students in the class, 11 had job offers before the class even concluded,” Gawlak said. “There’s definitely a need there, and employers are making use of the students and the program and gobbling them up even before they finish.”
To read the Mapping Green Career Pathways reports, go to www.ApolloAlliance.org.
Creating Clean Energy Jobs Still a Priority for President and Senate Leaders
During Wednesday’s State of the Union speech, President Obama often mentioned the clean energy economy and the need to put Americans to work in clean energy manufacturing facilities and jobs improving the energy efficiency of people’s homes. He also called for the passage of a comprehensive climate and clean energy bill.
“I know there have been questions about whether we can afford such changes in a tough economy; and I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change,” the president said. “But even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future—because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation.”
Read the State of the Union speech.
In response to the State of the Union address, Apollo Alliance Chairman Phil Angelides praised the president’s ongoing commitment to clean energy job creation and announced that Apollo will host a series of events in the Midwest to help chart this clean energy course. “Over the next several weeks, Apollo Alliances in Michigan, Indiana and Missouri will host forums to discuss how these states can reap the economic benefits of the global movement toward clean energy production,” Angelides said. “These forums will bring together a diverse array of businesses, labor leaders, political officials and economic development experts who can speak to the job creation potential of federal investments in cleaner, more efficient energy technologies, as well as to the role that federal climate and energy policies must play to drive demand and spur economic growth.”
Read the announcement about Apollo clean energy job creation events in Michigan, Indiana and Missouri.
Next week, the Senate is expected to announce its own plans for clean energy job creation when it introduces a jobs bill. The bill is said to include funding for many of the projects Apollo has advocated for in the New Apollo Program and the Apollo Green Manufacturing Action Plan, including home energy efficiency retrofits, manufacturing plant retrofits, transportation and infrastructure projects, and other measures.
In State of the Union, President Sets Sites on Creating Clean Energy Jobs
Apollo Alliance Chairman Phil Angelides Announces Midwest Forums of Business, Labor and Environmental Leaders to Chart Course Toward Clean Energy Economy
SAN FRANCISCO – In the wake of President Obama’s State of the Union call for creating clean energy jobs, Apollo Alliance Chairman Phil Angelides announced that the coalition of business, labor, environmental and community leaders which he leads will host a series of Midwest forums to help chart this new course:
“America’s jobs of the future will be created through today’s investments in energy efficiency and renewable power sources. By bringing together diverse interests to chart the course toward our clean energy future, we can strengthen American businesses and create a new generation well-paid jobs.
“Over the next several weeks, Apollo Alliances in Michigan, Indiana and Missouri will host forums to discuss how these states can reap the economic benefits of the global movement toward clean energy production. These forums will bring together a diverse array of businesses, labor leaders, political officials and economic development experts who can speak to the job creation potential of federal investments in cleaner, more efficient energy technologies, as well as to the role that federal climate and energy policies must play to drive demand and spur economic growth.”
The need to create new American jobs has never been more acute. Nationwide unemployment remained at 10 percent in December, and the U.S. manufacturing sector has been in severe decline over the past decade, shedding 5.5 million jobs since 2000. The one bright spot in the economy has been the expansion of clean energy jobs, which have grown at more than twice the rate of overall jobs over the past decade, according to a June 2009 analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
In December, Apollo released a clean energy investment plan that would create up to 1.2 million domestic jobs while increasing U.S. energy security and climate stability. The 5-point plan to spur economic recovery and create jobs focused on several areas the president and the Senate have identified as being critical to domestic job growth, including transportation infrastructure, energy efficiency and renewables, and domestic clean energy manufacturing.
CONTACTS: Sam Haswell: (415) 371-1700 x201
For more information, visit ApolloAlliance.org.
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The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, business, environmental and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs.
Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice
DETROIT – Michigan-based Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice (DWEJ) is a nonprofit that has been working in the environmental and social justice space since 1994. In 2007, DWEJ launched its Green Jobs Workforce Training Program with the intent of creating a skilled workforce that will help Detroit become more attractive to a new, but growing industry, according to DWEJ Green Jobs Director Roshani Dantas. The program, which originated with the Environmental Protection Agency-funded brownfield cleanup training that DWEJ has offered since 1995, is considered a model for combining soft- and hard-skills training. Read more
Green Affordable Housing in Indian Country
Green Affordable Housing in Indian Country is a “hands-on” green-construction training program involving Native American tribes in the upper Midwest, architects and landscape architects, builders and contractors, and students and faculty from the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Community College and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The project is oriented toward community development on Indian reservations through technology transfer and job skills training in sustainable housing construction techniques based on natural systems, organic materials, local labor, and energy efficiency. Read more
Wisconsin Models Workforce Development Partnerships
The Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership (WRTP)/Building Industry Group Skilled Trades Employment Program (BIG STEP) is one of the nation’s preeminent labor-led sector partnerships. Working with unions, businesses, community groups and the public workforce system, WRTP/BIG STEP has helped thousands of Milwaukee-area workers – often low-income or unemployed women and people of color – grow their skills and find good jobs while also helping dozens of local employers connect to the skills and workers they need. Read more
State of the Union? We Need Jobs and the Clean Energy Policies That Will Create Them.
On Wednesday night, President Obama will deliver the State of the Union speech amid rampant speculation over what issues he will choose to emphasize. Will he focus on health-care reform? The need to rein in Wall Street? His new proposal to freeze domestic spending?
An issue that he will almost certainly tackle is jobs and the economy. Nationwide unemployment continues to hover around 10 percent, a number that doesn’t even account for people who have given up their job hunt. Clearly, the topic of the hour is jobs, jobs, jobs.
Although some would argue that in this political climate, those who advocate for clean energy and climate action should put their issues on the back burner, the Apollo Alliance believes that the best way to address the American jobs crisis is to implement clean energy and climate measures that will re-establish the U.S. as a leader in the global clean energy marketplace.
Climate and clean energy measures create jobs. Even without national climate and clean energy policies, green jobs have grown at more than twice the rate of overall jobs over the past decade, according to a June 2009 study by the Pew Charitable Trusts. State-level studies show the same trend. For example, a December 2009 analysis by Collaborative Economics and Next 10 showed that California, which has some of the most forward-thinking climate policies in the country, has seen green job growth outpace overall job growth by a rate of almost 3-to-1 since 1995.
In 2008, the Apollo Alliance put forward a blueprint for creating a clean energy, good jobs economy called the New Apollo Program. Our plan was developed by experts from business and labor union representatives, environmentalists and social justice leaders. The plan calls for investing $500 billion over the next ten years on specific steps for generating clean power, improving energy conservation and efficiency, cutting energy bills, restoring America’s technological and industrial preeminence, and creating 5 million high-quality jobs.
The New Apollo Program includes five principal initiatives to achieve energy security, climate stability and economic prosperity:
*REBUILD AMERICA CLEAN AND GREEN: Produce 25 percent of the nation’s power from renewable sources and upgrade the energy efficiency of buildings by at least 30 percent by 2025; modernize the power grid; and improve transit systems.
*TAP THE PRODUCTIVITY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: Invest in green-collar job training initiatives – including job readiness and service programs, union apprenticeships, and community and technical college courses – to provide better jobs and the workforce needed to build the clean energy future.
*REINVEST IN AMERICA: Establish a “cap and invest” program to reduce carbon emissions and reinvest resources to build the new clean energy economy.
*MAKE IT IN AMERICA: Retool American factories to build renewable energy systems and high-efficiency, alternative-fuel vehicles.
This last recommendation to “Make it in America” is one that the president should unquestionably address in his State of the Union speech. More and more people are concerned that the clean energy manufacturing jobs that could be reviving the American manufacturing sector—and bringing back family supporting, middle-class jobs—are locating abroad in places like China instead of here at home in places like Ohio, Michigan and Missouri. If the president and Congress implemented policies to help level the playing field for American clean energy manufacturers, we would see a proliferation of jobs manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, electric car batteries, and other components of the clean energy economy.
Since we published the New Apollo Program in 2008, the Apollo Alliance has released additional job-creation proposals, including a December 2009 5-Point Plan for Boosting Clean Energy Job Growth. The plan—for inclusion in a larger Congressional and administration jobs bill—would create 1.2 million domestic jobs through initiatives like rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure by prioritizing public transit investments and fully funding the America Serves Act, which would expand programs like the conservation corps. The 5-Point Plan for Boosting Clean Energy Job Growth is available on ApolloAlliance.org.
On Wednesday night, the Apollo Alliance and our supporters will be watching the State of the Union speech and listening for the president’s recommendations on clean energy and good jobs. We expect him to be able to explain to the American people that achieving U.S. energy independence and climate security is a key to reviving our depressed economy and will benefit workers and businesses nationwide. If anyone can make this case, it’s our president.
Scott Brown and the Future of Our National Clean Energy Policies
This week, people who care about climate and clean energy issues have been trying to comprehend what the election of Scott Brown of Massachusetts to the U.S. Senate means for the future of comprehensive U.S. climate and clean energy legislation. Although Brown voted in favor of a cap-and-trade bill when he was a state senator, agreeing that Massachusetts should join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, he opposed a national cap-and-trade program during his senate campaign.
Some have speculated that Brown’s election means the current climate and energy bill, which includes a cap-and-trade program, now stands little chance of passing. ”A large cap-and-trade bill isn’t going to go ahead at this time,” U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein told the San Francisco Chronicle in a recent interview.
Others believe that a climate and clean energy bill with a cap on carbon emissions will still move forward this year. Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council and an Apollo Alliance board member, argued in a Huffington Post piece that a number of signs point to impending action on the climate and clean energy front. These include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s statement on Wednesday—the day after the Massachusetts election—that the Senate still plans to tackle energy and climate in order to “strengthen our national security, our environment and our economy.” Beinecke also referenced the ongoing bipartisan effort by Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman to produce a bill that both Democrats and Republicans will support.
The Apollo Alliance is continuing to urge the Senate to move forward with a comprehensive energy bill that includes a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, with Congress and the administration’s new focus on “jobs, jobs, jobs,” passage of a climate and clean energy bill is more relevant than ever. Climate and clean energy measures create jobs. Even without national climate and clean energy policies, green jobs have grown at more than twice the rate of overall jobs over the past decade, according to a June 2009 study by the Pew Charitable Trusts. State-level studies show the same trend. For example, a December 2009 study by Collaborative Economics and Next 10 showed that California, which has some of the most forward-thinking climate policies in the country, has seen green job growth outpace overall job growth by a rate of almost 3-to-1 since 1995.
Weekly update readers may be familiar with the studies quoted above, but another compelling study has received less public attention. Published recently in the journal Energy Policy, the study, by Dan Kammen and his colleagues at UC Berkeley, finds that all non-fossil fuel technologies (including renewable energy, energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies) create more jobs per unit of energy than the fossil fuel sector does. Click here to read the study.
States Still Taking the Lead
While national policymakers are still debating whether and what action to take on climate and clean energy issues, states continue to lead the way with cutting-edge programs in renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean cars, cap-and-trade programs and more. Dozens of states have renewable energy standards, energy efficiency standards for their buildings and appliances, standards requiring reduced greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, or are participating in regional cap-and-trade programs.
This year, states are continuing to plow ahead on clean energy initiatives, clearing a path for future federal government action. In Wisconsin, legislators are beginning to debate a bill that would require 25 percent of the state’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2025. In Washington state, Gov. Chris Gregoire, inspired by her trip to the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen, recently announced plans to make state agencies carbon neutral by 2020. In Tennessee, Gov. Phil Bredesen is busily—and successfully—working to attract solar manufacturers to his state.
To find out more about what’s happening at the state and local level on clean energy issues, get in touch with our state and local Apollo Alliance affiliates. You can also learn more about individual states’ existing programs and plans at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change website.
In Other News …
*Next week, the Apollo Alliance will release three reports that analyze existing workforce training programs in Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin and identify ways those programs can be better integrated and scaled up to help fill jobs in the clean energy sector. The reports look at the skills that are needed for green-collar jobs in construction and manufacturing, and make recommendations for how existing training programs can provide those skills by filling in gaps between programs rather than investing in new and sometimes unnecessary ones. The reports, Mapping Green Career Pathways, were co-written by the Apollo Alliance and partner organizations in each state and will be posted to ApolloAlliance.org on Mon., Jan. 25.
*In case you haven’t heard, Carl Pope, long-time executive director of the Sierra Club and an Apollo Alliance board member, announced this week that he is leaving his current post and will become executive chairman of the organization. We offer our sincere appreciation to Carl for all the wonderful work he’s done at the Sierra Club, and we look forward to working with him in his new position. Meanwhile, we’re excited that the Club’s new executive director will be Mike Brune, who we know well from his work leading the Rainforest Action Network the past seven years. Mike, good luck with your new job!
*As part of the lead up to Clean Energy Week 2010 (Feb. 1 – 5 in Washington, DC), Apollo’s executive director, Cathy Calfo, will participate with two other clean energy experts in a webinar called “Looking Ahead to Clean Energy Week 2010: An Analysis of the State of Clean Energy in the U.S.” The webinar will be held on Mon., Jan. 25 at noon eastern time and will cover a review of recent state and federal policy initiatives, among other topics. To register for the webinar, click here.
DOL Announces Green Jobs Training Grants to Create Pathways Out of Poverty
Following on the heels of its announcement last week of $100 million in Energy Training Partnership green jobs training grants, the Department of Labor announced another set of green jobs training grants this week: the Pathways Out of Poverty Grants. These grants are especially meaningful to the Apollo Alliance, as they represent the fruition of years of work by Apollo on the Green Jobs Act, which was passed as part of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and authorized $125 million per year in funding to train workers for jobs in energy efficiency and renewable energy. It also represents our more recent work on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), which finally provided the funding for the green jobs training programs authorized by the Green Jobs Act.
The Pathways Out of Poverty Grants were awarded primarily to organizations serving communities with poverty rates of 15 percent or higher. The $150 million in grant funding will go toward programs that not only train workers in the skills they need for jobs in energy efficiency and renewable energy, but also provide trainees with basic literacy and job readiness skills. Many of the programs will also provide support services like assistance with childcare and transportation.
Trainees served by the programs come from populations that face a variety of barriers to employment—high-school drop outs, ex-offenders, veterans, people with limited English proficiency and people with disabilities, among others. If the programs succeed, they will ensure that our growing green economy “lifts all boats” and “connects the people who most need work with the work that most needs to be done,” as Van Jones, former Apollo board member and founder of Green For All, who was instrumental in the passage of the Green Jobs Act, testified before Congress last year.
Among the 38 programs that will receive Pathways Out of Poverty grants are many the Apollo Alliance is familiar with. Goodwill Industries International will employ a four-phased model in its training program, designed to move job seekers from an intensive individual assessment through a job placement in energy efficient building construction or renewable energy in six cities: Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Grand Rapids, Phoenix and Washington, DC. Jobs for the Future Inc. will partner with the AFL-CIO Working for America Institute to ramp up pathways for unemployed and disadvantaged individuals in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Milwaukee and Philadelphia to move into green industries like energy-efficient building, construction and retrofitting. The National Council of La Raza will provide linguistically and culturally competent training in energy efficiency and clean energy for individuals with limited English proficiency in San Jose, San Diego and Chicago.
Many other deserving programs will receive Pathways Out of Poverty grants. For a full list, visit the Department of Labor website.
White House Also Announces Clean Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit Awards
Meanwhile, at the end of last week, the Obama administration announced the beneficiaries of an ARRA reward that could create some of the jobs that Pathways Out of Poverty trainees might eventually attain. The clean energy manufacturing tax credit will benefit 183 manufacturing facilities in 43 states, by providing them with a 30 percent tax credit for investments in facilities that produce renewable energy technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, advanced batteries and other clean energy products. The administration estimates that the $2.3 billion in tax credits will provide much-needed support to the domestic clean energy manufacturing sector and generate more than 17,000 jobs.
In December, the Obama administration proposed expanding the clean energy manufacturing tax credit by $5 billion because the program was oversubscribed by a ratio of 3-1, which meant many qualified manufacturing facilities that applied for the tax credits were not approved.
“The Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit program, which supports the building and equipping of factories to make the products of the green economy, has been wildly successful since its inception,” said Phil Angelides, chairman of the Apollo Alliance.
You can read the press release about the companies that will be awarded the tax credit on the White House website. Visit ApolloAlliance.org to read our statement on the proposal to expand the tax credit.
In other news …
*Center for American Progress says there’s good news about U.S. clean energy policy. This week, the Center for American Progress released an evaluation of the Obama administration’s progress on clean energy issues over the last year. The report, A Breath of Fresh Air: Obama Seizes the Energy Opportunity, says that despite setbacks like the failure of the Senate to vote on a clean energy and climate bill in 2009, the President and Congress made significant progress last year in the transition to a clean energy economy. They list the limits on greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles; the announcement that the EPA will regulate greenhouse gases; the inclusion of $100 billion in the Recovery Act for clean energy programs; and several other achievements that will have real-world impact. To read the report, go to the Center for American Progress website.
*Coming Soon: Clean Energy Week. Led by ACORE (the American Council on Renewable Energy), some 40 national organizations (including the Apollo Alliance) are organizing a week of action from Feb. 1–5, 2010, to encourage enactment of federal clean energy and climate measures. Clean Energy Week will consist of breakfasts, lunches, dinners, receptions, workshops, press conferences, rallies and outreach activities on Capitol Hill and across Washington, DC, sponsored individually by the participating organizations. To find out how you can participate, visit CleanEnergyWeek.org.
Transportation Reform a Key Priority in 2010
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| Photo: Alstom’s New York City subway car. Photo courtesy of Alstom |
As advocates for clean energy and good jobs evaluate opportunities to advance our issues in 2010—from a jobs bill that could include energy efficiency measures to a federal clean energy and climate bill—there is another oft-overlooked vehicle that advocates would be wise to consider. This year, Congress will likely pass a national transportation bill – legislation that comes up only about once every six years – through which the nation could reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector and significantly curtail petroleum use, thereby reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The transportation bill also could deliver major economic benefits, including millions of new construction, operations and manufacturing jobs – just what the doctor ordered to fix what’s ailing the U.S. economy.
Click here to read a new Apollo Alliance feature story about the upcoming transportation bill debate.
Among the organizations that are planning to engage groups in the upcoming transportation debate is the coalition Transportation for America, which was created in 2008 by Smart Growth America, Reconnecting America, and the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership. T4America, as the coalition is called, now counts some 400 organizations that support its agenda to create “a new national transportation program that will take America into the 21st Century by building a modernized infrastructure and healthy communities where people can live, work and play.”
“It’s astonished and gratified us the range of organizations that have realized a connection to transportation,” said David Goldberg, communications director at T4America. He listed AARP as being a T4America member that is concerned that the U.S. transportation landscape is unfriendly to aging Americans; the American Public Health Association as a member that is troubled by the health impacts of pollution from the transportation sector and the lack of physical activity that has resulted from our transportation infrastructure; and PolicyLink as a member that wants to provide poor communities access to affordable, high-quality transportation options.
Environmental groups like Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council are also part of the T4America coalition because of their focus on climate change. “If you’re talking about climate change, transportation is about a third of the emissions, and you’re not going to be able to put all new vehicles that run on cleaner fuels out there in time to deal with the problem,” said Goldberg. “Liquid fuel is going to be the fuel source for a lot longer, but part of what we need to do is not drive so much.”
The Apollo Alliance will be actively involved in the transportation debate during 2010, advocating for a cleaner, more sustainable transportation infrastructure and the high-quality jobs that will be generated by its development. Many economists consider the transportation sector to be rife with job creation potential. A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute (Transportation Investments and the Labor Market) found that a $250 billion investment in the U.S. transportation system would create more than 2.8 million direct and indirect jobs, 370,000 of them in manufacturing.
“Most of our manufacturers are buying components and intellectual property from overseas,” said Ed Wytkind, president of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO. “This [transportation bill] is a great opportunity to look at the next generation of locomotives and passenger rail cars and buses and make sure they’re not only more energy efficient, but that they also support American jobs.”
Click here to read the new Apollo Alliance feature story about the upcoming transportation debate, and the potential environmental and job benefits of a national transportation bill. And check www.apolloalliance.org on a regular basis for the latest information on Apollo’s role in developing a 21st century transportation policy.
Speaking of transportation …
A new report released on Tuesday by the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Smart Growth America and U.S. PIRG found that in the ten months following enactment of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, investments in public transportation created twice as many jobs per dollar as investments in highways. According to the report, What we learned from the Stimulus, and how to use what we learned to speed job creation in the 2010 jobs bill, the ARRA data compiled by the states shows that every billion dollars spent on public transportation produced 16,419 job-months, compared to 8,781 job-months for every billion spent on highway infrastructure. The report also examined the perception that public transportation projects are not as “shovel-ready” as highway projects. It found that nationally, ARRA-funded public transportation and highway infrastructure projects are spending money at about the same rate.
The organizations that authored the report hope that these findings convince Senators, who will soon be considering a jobs bill, to approve higher levels of investment in public transportation than were included in the House jobs bill that passed in December.
“This is a no-brainer. The Senate can ensure that more jobs are created across the country building the transportation system we need for the 21st century,” said Geoff Anderson, president of Smart Growth America. “If we are serious about creating jobs and bringing about the economic recovery our nation desperately needs, members of the Senate will insist on investing a greater percentage of the transportation funds in public transportation. Who is against more jobs?”
Green Jobs Training Grants Announced
On Wednesday, the Department of Labor announced that it would be awarding $100 million in green jobs training grants to 25 projects throughout the country. These Energy Training Partnership grants are part of the $500 million that was set aside in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to prepare workers for careers in the energy efficiency and renewable energy industries.
According to Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, who announced the grants in a webcast, the Energy Training Partnership grants are going to partnerships that include labor unions, public or private employers, and workforce organizations. They will support job training and placement for workers in underserved communities, such as veterans, women, youth, African Americans and Latinos, and will also target workers who have been impacted by the restructuring of the auto industry.
In Missouri, a partnership led by the UAW and the Labor Employment and Training Corporation will use the grant funds to retrain dislocated and incumbent auto workers for employment in energy efficiency and clean energy sectors. In Ohio, a partnership led by the Communication Workers of America National Education and Training Trust will develop and deliver a “Green Manufacturing Skill Training Certification” to prepare workers for careers in energy-related, energy storage and clean-manufacturing environments. In Ohio, New York, New Jersey and Utah, a partnership led by the International Transportation Learning Center will prepare workers for careers in public transportation.
The entire list of Energy Training Partnership grantees is available at the Department of Labor website.
Jerome Ringo Transitions from Apollo Alliance President to Stalwart Board Member
This week, Apollo announced that Jerome Ringo, our president since 2005, has accepted the position of senior executive for global strategies with Green Port, a private company that focuses on establishing sustainable “green” ports around the world. Ringo served as president of the Apollo Alliance since 2005 and will continue with us as a member of our board of directors.
“We congratulate Jerome on taking this next step in his distinguished career,” said Phil Angelides, chairman of the Apollo Alliance. “Jerome’s charismatic leadership helped Apollo reach new heights in our efforts to create good, clean energy jobs across the country. We are fortunate that he will continue to lend his voice and direction to Apollo as a member of our board.”
A dedicated champion of environmental justice and vocal clean energy advocate, Jerome began his career working in Louisiana’s petrochemical industry, where for more than a decade he was an active union member and worked with fellow members to secure a safe work environment and quality jobs. As he began to observe the negative impacts of the industry’s pollution on local communities – primarily poor, minority communities – Jerome began organizing community and environmental justice groups. His experience organizing environmental and labor communities and his drive to further diversify the environmental movement helped solidify his lifelong dedication to environmental and social justice.
Good luck, Jerome. We look forward to your leadership on the Apollo Alliance board!
National Transportation Bill Offers Prospect for Environmental and Job Benefits in 2010
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| Photo: Alstom’s New York City subway car. Photo courtesy of Alstom |
As advocates for clean energy and good jobs evaluate opportunities to advance their issues in 2010—from a jobs bill that could include energy efficiency and clean energy investments to a federal clean energy and climate bill—there is another oft-overlooked vehicle that advocates would be wise to consider. This year, Congress will likely pass a national transportation bill – legislation that comes up only about once every six years – through which the nation could reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector and significantly curtail petroleum use, thereby reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The transportation bill also could deliver major economic benefits, including millions of new construction, operations and manufacturing jobs – just what the doctor ordered to fix what’s ailing the U.S. economy.
“Transportation is the fastest growing sector in terms of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Jill Kubit, assistant director of the Cornell Global Labor Institute, which encourages labor unions to become actively engaged in climate policy. “But it’s often neglected in terms of the solutions side, so we feel a real need to engage unions and workers around this issue.”
Cornell’s Global Labor Institute isn’t the only organization that is planning to engage groups in the upcoming transportation debate. The coalition Transportation for America was created in 2008 by Smart Growth America, Reconnecting America, and the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership. T4America, as the coalition is called, now counts some 400 organizations that support its agenda to create “a new national transportation program that will take America into the 21st Century by building a modernized infrastructure and healthy communities where people can live, work and play.”
“It’s astonished and gratified us the range of organizations that have realized a connection to transportation,” said David Goldberg, communications director at T4America. He listed AARP as being a T4America member that is concerned that the U.S. transportation landscape is unfriendly to aging Americans; the American Public Health Association as a member that is troubled by the health impacts of pollution from the transportation sector and the lack of physical activity that has resulted from our transportation infrastructure; and PolicyLink as a member that wants to provide poor communities with access to high quality and affordable transportation options.
Environmental groups like Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council are also part of the T4America coalition because of their focus on climate change. “If you’re talking about climate change, transportation is about a third of the emissions, and you’re not going to be able to put all new vehicles that run on cleaner fuels out there in time to deal with the problem. Liquid fuel is going to be the fuel source for a lot longer, but part of what we need to do is not drive so much,” Goldberg said.
The transportation bill is so far-ranging that it touches many aspects of our lives. It addresses highways, bridges, highway safety, public transportation, railroads and high-speed rail, among other transportation issues. It includes the repair of existing transportation infrastructure as well as the financing of new highway and transit capacity. It targets metropolitan areas as well as rural areas. It regulates not only the movement of people, but also the movement of goods.
Groups that seek to reform of the transportation system also hope to address a wide diversity of issues through the transportation bill—climate change, health and safety, equity, smart growth and economic opportunity, among others. These groups are looking for more accountability throughout the transportation system and would like to shift more decision-making power away from states and toward metropolitan areas.
There is also a significant amount of money at stake, as well as the potential to create a large number of jobs. The last transportation bill was funded to the tune of $286 billion over six years; the current proposal by Minnesota Democrat James Oberstar, the chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, would increase that amount to $500 billion over six years, including $50 billion for high-speed rail. Representative Oberstar testified in July that the bill will “create or sustain approximately six million family-wage jobs.”
Many economists consider the transportation sector to be rife with job creation potential. A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute (Transportation Investments and the Labor Market) found that a $250 billion investment in the U.S. transportation system would create more than 2.8 million direct and indirect jobs. The study also looked at the quality of the jobs that would be created by transportation investments and found that they were more likely to be unionized and less likely to require a college degree.
“Essentially, they’re better paying jobs and for workers who don’t have a college education, which are the workers who are suffering most, both in this economy and over the last 20 years,” said EPI’s Ethan Pollack, one of the report’s authors.
Ed Wytkind, president of the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, concurs that transportation jobs have a higher level of union density than jobs in many other sectors of the economy. Wytkind’s organization represents 33 transportation unions across five modes of transportation: airlines, buses, rail, maritime and highway.
“Across the board, it’s a pretty dense industry when it comes to unionization,” Wytkind said. “This means you have higher wages, better benefits and better training. You probably have good quality healthcare, and you’re more likely to have a pension.”
Although Wytkind’s organization does not represent workers in transportation manufacturing, he is very interested in the potential for increased transportation investment to create not only construction and operations jobs, but also domestic manufacturing jobs. This interest is shared by other labor unions as well as businesses that want to revive the U.S. manufacturing sector, which has suffered over the past decade from vast numbers of U.S. manufacturing jobs going overseas.
“Most of our manufacturers are buying components and intellectual property from overseas. This [transportation bill] is a great opportunity to look at the next generation of locomotives and passenger rail cars and buses and make sure they’re not only more energy efficient, but that they also support American jobs,” Wytkind said.
The aforementioned EPI study estimated that a $250 billion transportation investment would create approximately 370,000 manufacturing jobs. Another recent study by the American Public Transportation Association (Economic Impact of Public Transportation Investment) found that for every $1 billion invested in capital expenditure for public transit, 3,109 new manufacturing jobs will be created.
Unfortunately, new manufacturing jobs – unlike those in construction and operations – often end up being created in other countries. Although transportation projects that receive federal funding are required by law to source a certain percentage of their components domestically and assemble the final products in the United States, much of the technological know-how required to produce cutting edge transit vehicles (such as high-speed rail) resides outside the U.S., and manufacturers often receive waivers to purchase their components from abroad. Even the U.S.-based transportation manufacturers are usually subsidiaries of foreign companies.
Charles Wochele is vice president of marketing and business development for Alstom Transportation, a French company that has facilities in New York, Illinois and California and employs some 1,600 U.S. employees in the passenger transportation field. He explained that many U.S. companies that specialized in rail manufacturing, like St. Louis Car and Pullman-Standard, got out of the business after the United States started moving away from rail and toward automobiles in the mid-20th century.
“It’s a global market and the U.S. doesn’t have that steady a market, so everyone pulled out and closed their doors on this business,” Wochele said. “If no one in the U.S. was buying automobiles, we wouldn’t have U.S. automakers.”
Jonathan Feldman, a professor at Stockholm University and expert in transportation manufacturing, offered a similar explanation in a March 2009 article in the American Prospect (“From Mass Transit to New Manufacturing”). He wrote, “The military-industrial system [which lured rail suppliers toward the superior profits available in the defense market], together with America’s huge subsidies for autos, created an economic and political environment that helped erode the incentives and capacities to domestically produce state-of-the-art mass-transportation goods.”
This means that rail manufacturers in the U.S—most of which are foreign companies—now work on a contract-to-contract basis, and often have to lay off workers once a contract ends. By contrast, Europe has had a steady and long-term commitment to public rail transportation. It has also standardized rail requirements from one European country to another. “In Europe, you can sell the same product across the borders without making a lot of changes,” Wochele said. “In the U.S., every contract seems to be different. It’s rare that you see two things made the same way.”
Wochele believes that despite the challenges of the U.S. market, transportation manufacturing could flourish in the U.S. if there were a dedicated funding source for public transportation. Right now, U.S. transportation funding is inconsistent, and transportation needs are paid for by a combination of fuel taxes and general funds revenues. Take high-speed rail, for example. After years of neglect, the Obama administration and Congress included $8 billion for high-speed rail in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Wochele said the Senate is deliberating allocating $1.2 billion for high-speed rail next year; Rep. Oberstar’s Surface Transportation Authorization Act proposes $50 billion over six years for high-speed rail.
Currently most U.S. transportation funding comes from the gasoline tax, which has remained static since 1993 and is not indexed to inflation. At 18.3 cents per gallon, the tax has lost 33 percent of its purchasing power over the last 15 years, according to Oberstar. Current funding for America’s transportation system does not even cover existing needs, leaving the U.S. with an annual transportation infrastructure deficit, said Jim Berard, communications director of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. If more funds are to be invested in transportation to create the jobs and other benefits for which many groups are advocating, either the gasoline tax will need to be increased, or a new and sustainable source of funding must be identified. However, with the economy still in a state of recession, most politicians are loath to support any tax increases. This is a key reason why the transportation bill, which expired in September 2009, has yet to be taken up by Congress and may not be seriously considered until fall 2010.
Funding is not the only challenge for those who seek changes in the U.S. transportation system to address environmental, public health, equity and other critical issues. Many groups still differ on their priorities. For example, while most groups support increased transportation investment, there are divisions as to whether public transportation should be on a more equal footing with highways. There are also divisions between organizations that support fix-it-first policies that prioritize repair and maintenance work on roads over new road and bridge construction, and those which argue that new road construction is needed to address traffic congestion and other problems. A new study released this week by the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Smart Growth America and U.S. PIRG took on this question from the jobs perspective and found that ARRA investments in public transportation created twice as many jobs per dollar as investments in highways.
Another potential roadblock is the disagreement between businesses and labor unions regarding “Buy America” provisions that are attached to federal transit investments. Labor unions are asking the Obama administration to close loopholes in Buy America policies and to make the waiver process more transparent so more transportation manufacturing jobs go to American workers. Businesses, on the other hand, typically want the freedom to negotiate the best deal they can for components, whether suppliers are based in the U.S. or abroad.
These issues will be discussed and debated throughout 2010 as Congress deliberates the transportation and jobs bills. In December, the Obama administration proposed that the jobs bill include a $50 billion infrastructure investment to go mainly toward highways, transit, rail and aviation. The House jobs bill, which was passed on Dec. 16, included approximately $37 billion in transportation investments.
To the extent that these investments create well-paying jobs and move the country toward a cleaner and more sustainable transportation system, they represent progress. But the transportation bill is still the 800 pound gorilla. As T4America’s Goldberg put it, “By all rights, this [transportation bill] ought to be the best opportunity in a generation to create a bold new vision for our national transportation policy.”
