DETROIT, Oct. 15 — It’s taken more years than necessary for Michigan, still an industrial power house, to join the clean energy, good jobs economy. It was only in September that Michigan became the 28th state to approve a renewable energy standard for its big electric utilities. There are less than 40 industrial scale windmills operating statewide, including two operating in McBain in northern Michigan (see pix above).

But that hasn’t stopped U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (see pix with Apollo President Jerome Ringo below) from becoming one of Capitol Hill’s stalwart champions of an industrial sector that is the fastest growing in the country. Her intent very clearly is to help turn the tiny clean energy presence in this state of 10 million residents, the nation’s eighth largest, into a bonafide source of thousands of new jobs. Michigan’s wind resource by itself, according to the Department of Energy, is one of the most robust in the nation because of the state’s proximity to the Great Lakes (see pix right). And the need for clean energy industrial development is urgent in a state with an unemployment rate of 8.9 percent in September, the nation’s highest.

On Wednesday, Stabenow headlined the Apollo Alliance’s roll out event here for The New Apollo Program, a national economic development plan to accelerate clean energy production and the creation of millions of new green-collar jobs. It was the fifth of six roll out events the Apollo Alliance has held across the country over the last two weeks. If The New Apollo Program were adopted by Congress, $19.7 billion would go to Michigan, creating 135,314 direct, permanent jobs over 10 years, including:

• 38,919 on-site construction jobs.
• 17,006 on-site manufacturing jobs.
• 3,128 transportation jobs.

A total 306,970 direct, indirect, and induced jobs would be created in Michigan over 10 years, according to Apollo Alliance estimates.

Stabenow described The New Apollo Program as a valuable help to the clean energy policy agenda she’s developed, and half of which was approved in the last year by Congress.

The major piece she’s championed is the $25 billion loan to the nation’s automakers, approved earlier this year, for retooling and development of next generation vehicles. She participated in approving the green-collar job training program that passed in 2007, and has worked to authorize funding. The investment and production tax credits for wind, solar, and other renewables that Stabenow supports was finally approved as part of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout package that passed earlier this month.

Still to come is Congressional support for infrastructure to encourage the biofuels industry, and federal support specifically for grass gas, the cellulosic ethanol that is under development at Michigan State University, and at a plant in the Upper Peninsula that converts wood waste to fuel. Lastly, Stabenow is sponsoring a bill to provide a $7,500 tax credit to families who invest in energy efficiency upgrades to their homes, and has a clean energy block grant program under consideration for communities.

“It’s just the beginning,” Stabenow said at the event, held at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History near Wayne State University. The roll out was attended by around 100 people, including leaders from the governor’s office, the state Legislature, the Detroit mayor’s office, the business community, labor, academia, and many of Michigan’s prominent environmentalists. “The New Apollo Program is the kind of bold program we need. We have to be bolder than we’ve been. The next Congress will take up proposals to curb global warming, to seek a system of cap and trade, to invest in biofuels and alternative energy.”

“The $50 billion a year that The New Apollo Program proposes to invest just doesn’t seem like that much money,” she continued. “It’s not a lot of money to spend on our future, especially when you consider the $700 billion that we just spent to bail out our banking system.”

Sen. Stabenow concluded her thoughts this way: “The New Apollo Program sets out a really good action plan for the next economy, the next moon shot on earth. We need to unleash the greatness of Michigan and the nation to pursue this vision.”

– Keith Schneider

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 18th, 2008 at 8:03 pm and is filed under Green-Collar Jobs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.