We received a nice gift this afternoon.

John Nichols of The Nation posted his list of Most Valuable Progressives.

The winner of MOST VALUABLE STATE OR REGIONAL GROUP:

Here’s what he said:

Bridging the gap between sometimes esoteric national debates about economic issues and the real-life challenges faced by people living in Cleveland, Youngstown and Dayton, Policy Matters Ohio is a non-profit research and advocacy organization that pushes the envelope on debates about tax policy and the funding of essential education and safety-net programs. Intellectually rigorous, yet always accessible in its approach, this group has produced more than 160 reports that have given Ohio’s progressive activists and legislators the tools they need to challenge corporate spin and pressure tactics. In tight economic times, groups such as Policy Matters Ohio are absolutely essential players in life-and-death debates about how state and local governmental agencies should respond to revenue shortfalls and rising demands for services. PMO’s founding executive director, Amy Hanauer, is great at making the link between the initiatives of national groups with which she works — the Economic Policy Institute, Demos and the Apollo Alliance — and local and legislative policymakers in Ohio, moving progressive priorities out of Washington to the communities where good ideas can and must be turned into practical programs. As an example of what Policy Matters Ohio does, check out the group’s great report: Limiting Loopholes: A dozen tax breaks Ohio can do without.

You can check out other Apollo friends on the list including The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Rep. Hilda Solis, Jamie Galbraith.

–Heidi Pickman

In the name of attracting jobs, states have used incentives to attract foreign car makers such as Toyota, Honda, and Mercedes-Benz.  States may offer property and sales tax exemptions, income tax credits, infrastructure aid, land discounts, and training grants.  According to the non-profit Good Jobs First, the total amount given by states and local municipalities have totaled $3.6 billion over the past 30 years.

Greg LeRoy, Good Jobs First’s executive director, said that these numbers - which were taken from media accounts - are conservative.

• Honda, Marysville, OH, 1980, $27 million*
• Nissan, Smyrna, TN, 1980, $233 million**
• Toyota, Georgetown, KY, 1985, $147 million
• Honda, Anna, OH, 1985, $27 million*
• Subaru, Lafayette, IN, 1986, $94 million
• Honda, East Liberty, OH, 1987, $27 million*
• BMW, Spartanburg, SC, 1992, $150 million
• Mercedes-Benz, Vance, AL, 1993, $258 million
• Toyota, Princeton, IN, 1995, $30 million
• Nissan, Decherd, TN, 1995, $200 million**
• Toyota, Buffalo, WV, 1996, more than $15 million
• Honda, Lincoln, AL, 1999, $248 million
• Nissan, Canton, MS, 2000, $295 million
• Toyota, Huntsville, AL, 2001, $30 million
• Hyundai, Montgomery, AL, 2002, $252 million
• Toyota, San Antonio, TX, 2003, $133 million
• Kia, West Point, GA, 2006, $400 million
• Honda, Greensburg, IN, 2006, $141 million
• Toyota, Blue Springs, MS, 2007, $300 million
• Volkswagen, Chattanooga, TN, 2008, $577 million

Total: more than $3.58 billion

* total of direct subsidies to all Honda facilities in Ohio
** includes about $200 million for expansions of Smyrna and Decherd plants

Crunching the numbers

The largest subsidy went to Volkswagen most recently.  About 2/3 of the subsidies have come in the last decade.

The breakdown by company:

• Subaru $94 million
• Hundai $252 million
• Mercedes $258 million
• Kia $400 million
• Honda $470 million
• Volkswagen $577 million
• Toyota $655 million
• Nissan $728 million

The top three states that gave subsidies were Tennessee who gave just over $1 billion; Alabama gave almost $800 million; and Mississippi gave almost $600 million.

It is interesting to juxtapose these subsidies with some wage data on U.S. automakers versus foreign automakers.

Base wages are comparable.  For example a veteran U.A.W. member earns about $28/hour.  The Toyota plant in Georgetown, KY pays about $25/hour.  It the benefits that give the labor cost advantage to foreign auto makers.  Health care, and pensions add about $45/hour to the cost of an average U.A.W. member, but only $20 to a Toyota employee.

–Heidi Pickman

Photo credit: code poet

A note on the data - according to Good Jobs First:

The subsidy amounts do not account for inflation; some would be worth far more in today’s dollars. They do not include any estimate of subsidies granted to hundreds of foreign-owned auto supply companies that have located in the same areas, virtually all of which were also heavily subsidized. Finally, they do not reflect later news accounts, which often place higher subsidy values.

President-elect Barack Obama announced that his economic recovery plan has a new goal of creating and/or saving 3 million jobs by 2010. The additional half a million jobs goal is a result of a worsening economic outlook for the U.S. economy. The expected cost is somewhere between $650 and $800 billion. We thought it would be a good idea to see what’s in the Obama-Biden stimulus plan that is consistent with the goals of The New Apollo Program.

Obama proposes the following that roughly coincides with portions of The New Apollo Program and Apollo Economic Recovery Act.

Rebuild America

• $25 billion for a Jobs and Growth Fund which would support fix-it-first transportation infrastructure repair and energy efficiency upgrades for schools
• A federal Renewable Portfolio Standard that calls for 25% of renewable energy by 2025
• $60 billion over 10 years for National Infrastructure Bank (could support public transit projects)

Make It In America

• $50 billion in loan guarantees for the retooling of automakers to build high-efficiency vehicles and to support battery manufacturing
• Advanced Manufacturing Fund to support ‘advanced manufacturing strategies’ (presumably clean energy technologies) – no amount specified
• Expanded funding for Manufacturing Extension Partnerships
• $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial scale renewable energy, invest in low emissions coal plants, and begin transition to a new digital electricity grid.
• $250 million per year for small business incubators in low-income communities (good idea to support clean tech start-ups)

Restore America’s Technological Leadership

• Make Research and Development Tax Credit permanent (matches our call for federal support of research and development)
• Invest in the sciences (no amount specified)

Tap the Productivity of the American People

• Support for green jobs training (no amount specified)
• Fight for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which promotes workers’ right to unionize (important for good jobs piece)

What is in the Apollo Economic Recovery Act that is NOT included in the Obama plan:

• Energy Efficiency Block Grants
• Incentives for switching to clean energy transit vehicles
• Weatherization Assistance Program (Obama increases funding to Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program but not for weatherization)
• Clean Energy Tomorrow scholarships
• Clean Energy Service Corps

–Elena Foshay

Statement of Phil Angelides, Apollo Alliance Chairman and former California State Treasurer:

“Congresswoman Hilda Solis is a visionary leader who understands that economic security for our families goes hand in hand with energy and national security. Her historic Green Jobs Act, that will train American workers for good paying, green jobs while combating global warming, is a roadmap for our nation’s path toward a green energy, good jobs future.

“As President-elect Obama and Congress contemplate big new investments to address the nation’s energy and economic crises, there is no better person to ensure that our nation invests in good jobs while investing in clean energy.

“I have had the honor of working with Congresswoman Solis to build a stronger foundation for working families in California and I look forward to working with her to strengthen economic security for families across the nation.”

The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution in America to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, cut the carbon emissions that are destabilizing our climate, and expand opportunities for American businesses and workers.

Congresswoman Hilda Solis (D-32, California,) if confirmed in January, will be President-elect Obama’s Labor Secretary.  Her  clean energy, good job resume’ is impressive.

Most near and dear to our hearts, she was instrumental in writing the House version of Green Jobs Act and making sure the ‘pathways out of poverty’ piece was included.

She’s currently in her fourth term in the U.S House of Representatives, where she serves on the following committees:

• Committee on Energy and Commerce (Vice Chair of the Environment and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee)
• House Committee on Natural Resources
• House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

She served eight years in the California legislature where she fought for increases in the minimum wage.   In August 2000, Solis received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for her work on environmental justice issues.

California Labor Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski said of her appointment:

Working people in California know what a champion they’re getting in Rep. Solis. From her time fighting for a higher minimum wage in the California state legislature to her support for expanded access to health care and fair trade in the U.S. Congress, Solis has shown time and again that she’s committed to protecting the interests of working families. Throughout her career in Congress, she’s voted in favor of working families 97 percent of the time, including 100 percent last year.

The labor community isn’t the only ones cheering the appointment.  Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club and Apollo Board member, is ‘overjoyed’ at the appointment.

This latest pick underscores the strong commitment of the administration to action on clean energy, global warming, and a green economic recovery.  President-Elect Obama has assembled a team of unprecedented strength to advise him on energy, environmental, science, and climate issues.  This extraordinary team is poised to help the President-Elect implement his ambitious agenda to put America back to work by tackling the significant climate and energy challenges facing our country.

– Heidi Pickman

Though more than a month has passed since November 4^th, we’re still cheering Christine Gregoire’s reelection as governor of Washington State. Gregoire, the democratic incumbent, beat republican candidate Dino Rossi with more than 53 percent of returns, a 170,000 vote margin. Her victory is especially satisfying if you recall her nail-biting overtime win in 2004, by a mere 133 Washingtonians – one of the closest in American history.

Gregoire is among our country’s most forward-thinking politicians on climate change. The governor’s innovative actions on energy and environment issues include:

• In 2005, signing a groundbreaking renewable energy law (at the time, the most progressive in the U.S.) that increases the amount of energy efficiency and renewable resources in the state’s electricity system and encourages local manufacturing of clean energy equipment and revitalization of economically depressed areas.
• Adopting the 2005 Clean Car Act, requiring certain automobiles to meet tougher emissions standards.
• In 2007, signing an executive order requiring greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020, and further halved by 2050 – a policy that will create 25,000 green jobs by 2020. Washington Apollo Alliance coordinator Patrick Neville says this bill “will prepare people for good, family-wage jobs in non-polluting employment, while promoting sustainable use of our natural resources and broadening investment in Washington’s economy.”
• Requiring state agencies to purchase hybrid and other low-emission vehicles as part of the “Washington Climate Change Challenge.”

According to her website, Governor Gregoire will invest in renewed transportation infrastructure, promote expanded production and use of sustainable biofuels, and continue to champion better energy efficiency in buildings (an area in which she’s been recognized by the Northwest Energy Coalition). She’s also brought her state into the Western Climate Initiative, a regional cap-and-trade policy.

-Seph Petta

After studying to become a nurse, Olivia Caldwell (see pix left) discovered that hospitals and health care organizations have restrictions on hiring formerly incarcerated people. Construction companies have no such restrictions, so she decided to join Cypress Mandela where she learned about the Oakland Green Jobs Corps. Olivia, mother to one-year-old Summer, is now a trainee in the Oakland Green Jobs Corps program. Olivia is excited about this new opportunity because she wants to provide for her daughter and looks forward to helping create a healthy world for her daughter. “With this training I can provide for the future of my one-year-old daughter and the future of our planet.”

Providing “green pathways out of poverty,” the Oakland Green Job Corps will serve young adults who face barriers to employment - poverty, lack of work experience, limited education, cultural and language barriers, or history with the criminal justice system. The teachers at Cypress Mandela provide wraparound services and work with the students to help them achieve basic literacy and math skills, pass their GED, learn personal finance, get their drivers license or clear their driving record, and pass their weekly drug tests.

The students receive hands-on training in the construction trades, as well as specific training for green-collar jobs, such as solar panel installation, energy efficiency and green construction. The program will also include a section on eco-education and environmental literacy.

“This is a very elegant idea, elegant in its simplicity,” said Mayor Ronald Dellums of Oakland (see pix above.) “The idea is to fight pollution and fight poverty simultaneously.”

The Oakland Green Jobs Corps proudly launched in October 2008, after more than two years of hard work by the Oakland Apollo Alliance and a rich network of supporters and partners. The program officially launched at a press conference on October 25 that featured elected officials, employers, labor union leaders, community members, and for the first time, students of the training program.

Elected officials from all levels of government celebrated the kick-off, including Mayor Dellums, U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Oakland City Councilmembers Nancy Nadel and Jane Brunner, state legislators Loni Hancock and Sandre Swanson, Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, and Peralta Community College Chancellor and former Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris.

The Oakland Green Jobs Corps is a partnership between Laney Community College, Cypress Mandela Construction Training Program, and a workforce intermediary called Growth Sector. This partnership is designed to insure that students graduate with the training, education, and support they need to qualify for employment with green-collar businesses. The first cohort of 40 students will be placed in jobs by Spring 2009.

In order to guarantee that the graduates of the Oakland Green Jobs Corps are placed in jobs paying a living wage, the Ella Baker Center organized the Green Employer Council comprised of green businesses and non-profits in the East Bay that do solar installation, green construction, and energy efficiency work. Members of the Green Employer Council agree to provide paid work experience and jobs for graduates. Roughly half of the graduates will take jobs with union contractors.

“It is critical for green workforce development to be demand driven”, said Ian Kim of the Ella Baker Center. “We don’t want to train people up for jobs that don’t exist, and we want the training to be tailored for employer’s real-time needs.”

The program’s model for green workforce development is based upon the research of Professor Raquel Pinderhughes of San Francisco State University and the work of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and the Oakland Apollo Alliance.

The City of Oakland provided $250,000 in seed funding for the Oakland Green Job Corps, a signature victory of the Oakland Apollo Alliance. The city awarded these funds through a competitive process to identify the partnership most qualified to launch a new green job training program.

This groundbreaking job training program turns rhetoric into a reality, and will provide a useful model for other cities.

– Lillian Wilson, Campaign Associate, Ella Baker Center

As the Obama transition team gears up to take over in January, the clean energy, good job community hopes that they will consider an economic stimulus package that is green and equitable.  The Apollo Alliance and its allies, including youth groups and environmental justice organizations, sent a memo to the transition team today suggesting principles to follow that will ensure the stimulus package is just and inclusive.

“This letter reflects Apollo’s deep commitment to catalyzing a green economy that creates good jobs and broadly shared prosperity,” says Apollo co-director Kate Gordon. ” We are particularly pleased to be signing
onto the letter with such a diverse group of environmental, social justice, and state and local organizations.”

The memo calls for an economic stimulus package that calls for maximum investment in the clean energy, good job economy such as retrofits and fixing infrastructure that create family-supporting jobs, provides funding to local municipalities, and opportunities for underserved communities to climb out of poverty.

The memo that was send follows.

MEMORANDUM

To: Melody Barnes, Carol Browner, Michael Strautmanis, Dan Reicher, Greg Nelson, Joe Aldy, Brian Deese, Heather Zichal, Jason Grumet

From: The Undersigned Organizations

Subject: Principles for a Green & Equitable Stimulus and Recovery

Date: December 11, 2008

As you draft and debate proposals to stimulate the American economy, we strongly urge you to make the recovery package as green and as equitable as possible. We propose these principles as benchmarks against which all stimulus proposals – indeed, all energy-related proposals coming out of the new administration and Congress – should be measured. The stimulus must:

· Maximize investments in the transition to a green, inclusive economy.

· Focus on fixing, improving efficiency, and lowering energy costs for our existing infrastructure – our buildings, roads and bridges, transmission grid, public transit systems, and manufacturing plants – rather than on new development.

· Promote high quality, family-supporting jobs here at home.

· Provide opportunities for under-served communities to access these high quality jobs, through investments in training programs and partnerships that promote career ladders and “pathways out of poverty.”

· Drive funding to states, cities, tribes and communities, and allow them some freedom to decide where and how they invest in their own economies.

We have in this time of crisis an historic opportunity to incorporate principles of sustainability, fairness, and equity directly into programs to grow our national economy. And we have an opportunity to make fundamental choices about the kind of economy we want to create for the 21^st century. We can build a green economy that lifts all boats and puts America on a path to true prosperity, but only if we start now by demonstrating the political will to do so at this critical juncture.

Sincerely,

1Sky

1,000 Friends of Wisconsin

350.org

Alliance for Climate Protection

Apollo Alliance

Campus Progress

Center for American Progress Action Fund

Center for Neighborhood Technology

Center for State Innovation

Center on Wisconsin Strategy

Ceres

Chesapeake Climate Action Network

Citizens Utility Board of Wisconsin

Clean Water Action

Clean Wisconsin

Climate Crisis Coalition

Climate Solutions

Coalition on Human Needs

Color of Change

Common Cause

Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University

Democracia USA

Earth Ministry

EcoAmerica

Ecology Center

Ella Baker Center for Human Rights

Energize America

Energy Action Coalition

Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative

Environmental and Energy Study Institute

Fresh Energy

Future Majority

Global Exchange

Green For All

Greenpeace USA

Hip Hop Caucus

Illinois Environmental Council

Interfaith Power and Light

Iowa Environmental Council

IowaGlobalWarming.Org

Kyoto USA

League of Young Voters Education Fund

Michigan Energy Alternatives Project

Michigan Land Use Institute

Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy

MoveOn.org Political Action

National Hispanic Environmental Council

NYC Apollo Alliance

Oil Change International

PolicyLink

Policy Matters Ohio

Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada

Rainforest Action Network

Restoring Eden

Rock the Vote

Sierra Club

Sierra Club, Cascade Chapter

Sierra Student Coalition

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

Urban Agenda

Valley Watch, Inc

Windustry

Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters

The new Secretary of Energy (once confirmed) has an impressive resume’ - a Ph.D. from UC-Berkeley, ten honorary degrees, a lecturer at Harvard and Oxford, a Nobel prize, and soon to be former head of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Of interest to the clean energy, good jobs crowd, Steven Chu has been an advocate for renewable energy research.  As recent as three months ago, he testified on The Hill for more  funding for science-based energy research.

The Environmental Protection Agency likely will be led by Lisa P. Jackson, the former commissioner of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection.  In her position, she’s known for cleaning up toxic waste sites.

President-elect Barack Obama is expected to create a new position for Carol Browner, one that will coordinate energy, environmental, and climate change policy.  And Nancy Sutley is expected to be tapped to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality.  Sutley advises Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on environmental issues.

The team indicates that Obama’s energy and environmental policies will be very different from the current ones.  The announcements are expected to be official next week.

– Heidi Pickman

No matter what your opinion is of the auto industry bailout, check out this interactive map from the Detroit Free Press.  You can find out the state-by-state total employment of automotive jobs or employment broken down by parts, assembly and dealerships.  The states most affected by the auto industry include: Michigan (of course), California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania Tennessee and Texas. 

– Heidi Pickman, Seph Petta