If you’ve spent time looking at the In The News Feature on the Apollo Web site you’ll see how much care and time we take with the media to make the case for the clean energy, good jobs economy. We know the reach and influence of the journalists and broadcasters and editors who are interested in our expertise and perspective. We prepare diligently so that every interview adds value to the nation’s progress in achieving a clean energy economy, and to our own work.

Last Friday, though,  we encountered some rare turbulence. The Wall Street Journal, in an article about clean energy investments and green-collar jobs incorrectly asserted that varying job creation estimates are “squishy.” I was surprised by a quote attributed to me that implied that Apollo’s five million job number is “just to inspire people.” Nor was I alone. My colleagues at the Center for American Progress also were concerned.

Well, the projection of five million green-collar jobs is accurate and inspiring.  It is inspiring to think of a federal investment strategy that can catalyze the American economy by creating new demand for clean energy and energy efficiency systems. It is inspiring to think about the investments in job training to help scale up America’s workforce to prepare to make, install, and maintain these products. It is truly awe-inspiring to think of the millions of Americans that can be put to work all over this country, in a huge range of occupations, moving America toward a clean energy future.

But it is not just inspiring.  It is accurate.  In The New Apollo Program, we argue for a $50 billion annual investment program over ten years.  It is an investment in all sectors of the American economy: from green construction to energy efficiency retrofits; from our transportation system to our power grid; from our existing factories to cutting-edge research, development and deployment opportunities.  Based on a comprehensive study on a very similar set of proposals that was done for Apollo in 2004 by economist and Nobel-nominated laureate M. Ray Perryman, this level of federal investment will create or retain at least five million jobs in America.  Most of these are on-site construction, manufacturing, and transportation jobs – jobs in industries that tend to pay a family supporting wage and benefits, and that have anchored America’s middle class for generations.

Dr. Perryman’s data show also that the economic benefits of the Apollo investment strategy don’t stop at on site jobs. These investments will create millions more jobs in associated industries, like the trucking companies moving the wind turbines, the lawyers and accountants helping broker deals between new clean energy businesses, or even the small restaurants and stores catering to the linemen and women upgrading the transmission grid in countless towns across the country.

Other studies, such as the “Green Recovery” paper recently released by the Center for American Progress, also include the positive economic impact created by, for instance, lower energy bills as a result of more clean energy options.  Lower bills equal more money in consumers’ pockets, equal more spending in the local economy, equal more jobs.

These “indirect” jobs are included in President-elect Obama’s green jobs calculations, explaining why he comes to the five million job number with a lower initial investment.  The different numbers are by no means “squishy.” They are the result of different initial assumptions, leading to different results.

What is not in doubt is that clean energy policies and investments create jobs.  Just look at Newton, Iowa, where laid off Whirlpool employees are now making wind turbine blades for General Electric. Or Sacramento, California where a shuttered nuclear plant is now home to a solar array capable of generating as much power as the plant ever did.  (Link to our map.)

At Apollo, we are awestruck every day by stories like these, and by the sheer potential scale of the new green economy – an economy that can and should create millions of high-quality, decent jobs for hardworking Americans who want to make a decent wage while also fighting back global warming.

Darn right we’re inspired.  Aren’t you?

– Kate Gordon

This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 1:26 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.