This week the California Apollo Alliance released a comprehensive strategy that details how to continue creating good clean energy jobs in California and move the state toward broadly shared economic prosperity, energy security and climate stability. The California Apollo Program calls for reinforcing and expanding the state’s commitment to clean energy at a time when California’s landmark climate law, AB 32, is under attack, and clean energy job growth is one of the few bright spots in California’s struggling economy.
“We can’t afford to quit on California’s best opportunity to create jobs and ensure a more prosperous decade—expansion of California’s clean energy economy,” said Lisa Hoyos, California coordinator of the Apollo Alliance.
The California Apollo Program was developed by leaders of California’s businesses, labor unions, environmental groups and social justice organizations. This group developed a set of policy recommendations to secure California’s economic future, retain the state’s global leadership in clean energy and technological innovation, and engage the workers and businesses who can keep the world’s 8th largest economy growing. The program has already been endorsed by Applied Materials, California Labor Federation, California League of Conservation Voters, California State Building and Construction Trades, Environmental Defense Fund, Green For All, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Business Council, SunPower Corporation, Union of Concerned Scientists and many others. Click here to endorse the California Apollo Program on behalf of your business or organization. Click here to support the California Apollo Program as an individual.
The backdrop of the release of the California Apollo Program is an effort by Texas oil companies to stop the implementation of California’s landmark climate and clean energy bill, AB 32. Oil giants Valero Energy and Tesoro, both of San Antonio, Texas, are funding a campaign to prevent AB 32 from going into effect.
For other states that are considering clean energy and climate measures, AB 32 is a model in that it includes the vast diversity of possible climate and clean energy policies. Key AB 32 measures include the following:
*A 33 percent renewable portfolio standard, to be met by 2020.
*A “million solar roofs” initiative.
*Strict building and appliance energy efficiency standards.
*GHG emissions standards for passenger vehicles.
*A low-carbon fuel standard.
*A plan for high-speed rail between Northern and Southern California.
*A cap and trade program, in collaboration with other Western U.S. states and Canadian provinces.
*Many other measures in areas including land use, industrial energy efficiency, agriculture, forests, recycling and waste, and water.
The California Apollo Program would reinforce and expand AB 32 so that California keeps creating clean energy jobs. These jobs grew by five percent in California during the recession while overall employment decreased. The Program’s recommendations include:
Transforming the Way California Generates and Uses Energy
• Realize the economic opportunity of California’s groundbreaking comprehensive climate law.
• Generate 33 percent of the California’s power from renewable sources by 2020 and prioritize in-state production.
• Upgrade California’s existing buildings to world class energy efficiency standards and ensure that new construction is “green.”
• Modernize the power grid to support clean energy generation and smart grid technology.
• Require smart, sustainable and equitable approaches to land use as California’s communities grow.
• Revitalize rural California by expanding environmentally sustainable renewable energy and carbon sequestration projects.
Maintaining California’s Global Leadership in the Clean Energy Economy
• Invest in clean energy research and development.
• Target public and private support toward commercialization of new technologies.
• Support public-private research and development partnerships.
• Provide sufficient and stable support for California’s institutions of higher education.
Making It in California, by Californians
• Help manufacturers retool their factories and retrain their employees to produce clean energy products.
• Revamp California’s transportation manufacturing industry to meet growing demand for high-efficiency vehicles.
• Invest in next-generation alternative fuels and California’s low-carbon fuel infrastructure.
• Modernize California’s transportation infrastructure to connect our neighborhoods, cities and rural areas with world-class transit systems.
• Promote “Buy California” and “Buy America” policies.
• Recycle and reuse it in California.
Creating Economic Prosperity for All and Tapping the Skills and Productivity of California’s Workforce
• Train California’s workers to meet the demands of the clean energy economy.
• Ensure that the transition to a clean energy economy creates pathways out of poverty.
• Prioritize the creation of good, family-supporting jobs.
Here’s what you can do to support the California Apollo Program to build and strengthen California’s clean energy economy:
*Read the California Apollo Program
*Endorse on behalf of your organization
*Express your support as an individual
*Share the California Apollo Program with your friends and neighbors and on your social networks: Forward this email to your friends and neighbors; update your Facebook status or post a link (For example, “The California Apollo Program charts a path to our clean energy future. We can’t afford NOT to implement it. Join me and sign the petition and become a supporter! http://bit.ly/CAApollo“); or tweet about it (For example, “RT @ApolloAlliance #CAApollo charts a path to CA’s #cleanenergy future. #greenjobs #economy #stimulus http://bit.ly/CAApollo“).
Click here to read an op-ed about the California Apollo Program in the California Progress Report by Lisa Hoyos, Apollo’s California coordinator.
In other news …
*Democracy Collaborative releases new report on green ownership. The Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland has released a new report called Growing a Green Economy for All: From Green Jobs to Green Ownership. The Democracy Collaborative advocates the idea that the emerging green economy is an opportunity not only to create a significant number of new, green jobs but also to organize those jobs so that they significantly broaden ownership over wealth and capital. In short: green jobs you can own. The report looks at cooperatives, employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) companies, municipal enterprises, non-profit social enterprises, community development corporations and community development financial institutions that participate in the green economy, and includes case studies as well as descriptions of the challenges faced by those who seek to build an equitable green economy. Click here to read the report.
*The weekly update will be on vacation next week. Have a great Labor Day weekend, and we’ll talk to you again in September!
