Announcing the Apollo Alliance 2009 Right Stuff Award Winners

On Friday, Nov. 6, the Apollo Alliance will award the 2009 Right Stuff Awards to five individuals whose work exemplifies Apollo’s clean energy, good jobs mission. This year’s honorees are Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund; Barbara Byrd, secretary-treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO; Keith Cooley, president and CEO of NextEnergy; Sally Prouty, president of The Corps Network; and Terry O’Sullivan, general president of the Laborers International Union of North America.

We hope you are as inspired as we are by the pioneering work that’s been done by these visionary leaders during the last year—and over the span of their careers:

Fred Krupp. In his 24 years as head of Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Fred Krupp has overseen the organization’s growth from a small nonprofit with a budget of $3 million into a global leader in the environmental movement. Fred is widely recognized as a champion of harnessing market forces for environmental ends, such as the market-based acid rain reduction plan in the 1990 Clean Air Act that The Economist hailed as “the greatest green success story of the past decade.” Today, this approach has become the leading model for solving the climate change. Krupp is coauthor, with Miriam Horn, of New York Times Best Seller, Earth: The Sequel – The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming.

Barbara Byrd. As secretary-treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO, Barbara has been at the forefront of Oregon’s efforts to create green jobs and become a more energy-efficient state. In her capacity as head of the Oregon Apollo Alliance, Barbara worked for the passage of Oregon’s Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Technology Act of 2009, which created a statewide, low-interest loan program for home and small business weatherization. She is also active on climate change and green jobs regionally—as a leader of a group of labor unions that is participating in the development of a regional cap-and-trade program called the Western Climate Initiative. Internationally, Barbara attended the UN Climate Change Convention in Bali, Indonesia, as part of the first official U.S. labor delegation to participate in these discussions.

Keith Cooley. As president and CEO of NextEnergy, one of the nation’s leading accelerators for alternative and renewable energy technologies, Cooley and his team are striving to make Michigan the Silicon Valley of alternative energy production. Keith and NextEnergy are bringing hundreds of millions of dollars in alternative energy investment to Michigan by promoting the region’s wealth of manufacturing resources and skilled workforce that were created by the automotive industry. These resources have positioned Michigan to capitalize on the clean energy revolution.

Terry O’Sullivan. The general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA), Terry is regarded as an innovator by the newest generation of labor leaders. Working with the U.S. Department of Labor, Terry and LIUNA have developed a breakthrough national weatherization training program to help meet the demand for the thousands of skilled workers that will be needed to weatherize America, including technicians, installers and energy auditors. By taking the lead in training America’s clean energy workforce, Terry has shown that if a green job is also a good job, we can truly transform or economy and save our planet.

Sally Prouty. As director of the Ohio Civilian Conservation Corps, Sally Prouty created the ‘Corps to Career’ program, in which she demonstrated that formerly incarcerated young people could leave juvenile justice correction centers, secure jobs, and become stewards of the environment. Today, service and conservation corps, in partnership with unions and workforce development and educational institutions, provide green jobs training across the country. As president of The Corps Network, Sally has been the driving force behind a national Clean Energy Service Corps that will help to retrofit American cities and put corps members on pathways to successful careers in the clean energy economy.

The Right Stuff Awards will be presented on Friday, Nov. 6 at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco at an event that will raise awareness and financial support for Apollo’s efforts to promote clean energy and good jobs in the United States. The event’s keynote speaker is U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who is a leading policy maker on the issue of clean energy manufacturing.

For more on the honorees and the awards dinner, check out the Right Stuff Awards event page.

Clean Energy Manufacturing Brouhaha in the News

A recent rash of news stories have highlighted the fact that many clean energy manufacturing jobs are going overseas. This is a critical issue that the Apollo Alliance has been working to address for some time.
Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal ran a story (Chinese-Made Turbines to Fill U.S. Wind Farm) about a Chinese wind-turbine company that is going to be the exclusive supplier to one of the largest wind-farm developments in the U.S. The development, which will be located in West Texas, is ostensibly going to create 2,800 jobs, but only 15 percent of them will be in the United States. The rest will be in China.

On Sunday, the New York Times’ Green Inc. blog took up the same topic (Chinese Involvement in Proposed Texas Wind Farm Stirs Passions) and included dozens of angry comments from readers who wanted to know why U.S. companies—rather than a Chinese company–weren’t manufacturing these wind turbines. The column also mentioned that China’s foray into the American wind power market coincides with its dominance of the solar panel manufacturing industry. A subsequent column (Of China, Texas and Green Jobs) included a defense from a managing partner in the private equity firm that funded the Texas wind farm.
From the Apollo Alliance’s perspective, neither China nor Texas should be blamed for these developments. Absent federal policies that encourage domestic production of clean energy systems and technologies, America will continue to lose green manufacturing jobs to other nations.

U.S. Reps. Zack Space and John Boccieri of Ohio were keyed in on this issue when they incorporated language into the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) that would help traditional U.S. manufacturers retool to enter the clean energy economy.

In the Senate, the champion of clean energy manufacturing is Sherrod Brown, also of Ohio. He introduced the IMPACT Act, which would establish a revolving loan fund to help small and mid-sized manufacturers in the U.S. retool their factories to produce clean technologies. The bill would also increase support for Manufacturing Extension Partnerships (MEPs) that link smaller manufacturers to supply chains and markets for their goods. Brown is working to get the IMPACT Act incorporated into the Senate clean energy and climate bill.

The federal government could do much more to promote domestic clean energy manufacturing. It could offer incentives to persuade clean energy manufacturing companies to set up shop in the U.S.—a common practice around the world. It could also adopt a domestic content requirement – often called a “Buy American” policy – that would either require or give preference to companies that use a certain percentage of components that are manufactured in the United States.

Some green jobs will, by their nature, be located in the United States—like jobs making buildings more energy efficient and jobs operating and maintaining wind and solar farms. But the jobs that can be sent offshore will be—unless our policy makers take steps to keep them here.

Learn more about the IMPACT Act.

In other news …

*Apollo’s chairman, Phil Angelides, had an op-ed published in Roll Call this week. His piece praises the unlikely alliance between Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., calling it a crucial step toward achieving a clean energy, good jobs economy that protects and creates jobs, enhances national security, and reduces climate-changing emissions.

*We have a new clean energy success story for your reading enjoyment. Our newest Signature Story is about New York’s Green Jobs/Green New York Act, which was signed into law by Gov. David Patterson on Oct. 13. Green Jobs/Green New York sets a goal of retrofitting a million homes across the state, and establishes a revolving loan fund to cover up-front costs of residential and commercial energy efficiency improvements. The loan fund and an associated green jobs training program will be funded with proceeds from a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) auction. RGGI is a cap-and-trade program that was started by 10 Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states.