Green Jobs and Infrastructure Act of 2008: Model Programs

The numbers below provide background information for the Apollo Green Jobs and Infrastructure Act of 2008, developed by Senator Debbie Stabenow’s office in consultation with the Apollo Alliance, along with Green For All, the Corps Network, the Center for American Progress, and others.

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Data Points: Job Consequences of Green Jobs and Infrastructure Act

These are the components of the Green Jobs and Infrastructure Act:

1.  Clean Tech Manufacturing Incentives –  $50 billion in loans but not at full cost to the government.
The Green Jobs and Infrastructure Act calls for federal loan guarantees to create a $50 billion loan program for manufacturing plants in order to help them retool or retrain workers to produce clean energy and energy efficiency components or end products. This would create 250,000 direct manufacturing jobs in the U.S., and support an additional 725,000 indirect jobs. With an economic multiplier of 2.43 for investment in manufacturing, the loan program would generate as much as $120 billion in revenue due to increased demand for products and services.
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Stabenow Outlines Clean Energy Path to 1 Million New Jobs

WASHINGTON – As the nation’s concern over job losses and a faltering economy reached new depths this week, the Apollo Alliance and a group of prominent public interest organizations joined today in applauding Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow’s introduction of a landmark clean energy economic recovery bill to rebuild the American manufacturing sector.

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Apollo Weekly Update, 12/8/08: Economic Recovery and Clean Energy Stimulus

This week, as the clean energy, good jobs economy again attained prominence at the top levels of national policy making, the Apollo Alliance introduced the Apollo Economic Recovery Act. Our one-year, $50 billion proposal is a comprehensive quick start, clean energy economic recovery strategy to immediately create or retain 650,000 direct green-collar jobs and an additional 1.3 million indirect jobs in communities across the country. Look for the full proposal on our Web site here.

This week we also applauded the introduction of the Green Jobs and Infrastructure Act of 2008, sponsored by Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow and co-sponsored by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. (http://apolloalliance.org/news/clean-energy/stabenow-outlines-clean-energy-path-to-1-million-new-jobs/).

And we welcomed the Boston Green Justice Coalition as the newest member of the Apollo Alliance.

The Apollo Economic Recovery Act and the Green Jobs and Infrastructure Act respond directly to President-elect Barack Obama’s call this month for a “big stimulus package” in January to “jolt” the economy and “lay the groundwork for long- term, sustained economic growth.”

As you know the Apollo Alliance is all about that. In September we introduced The New Apollo Program, which proposed to spend $50 billion annually over ten years to create 5 million good-paying jobs while helping to solve the climate crisis, the energy crisis, and the economic crisis. Our economic development strategy calls for a sweeping set of actions. They include big commitments to energy efficiency, transit and electrical grid expansion and modernization, road and bridge repair, dramatic increases in the use of renewable energy, and a major investment to reinvigorate manufacturing for clean energy equipment and advanced fuel-efficient vehicles.

House and Senate leaders frame the steps needed to scale up the clean energy economy in terms that are consistent with what Apollo has proposed and at the same magnitude of investment. The president-elect and members of his transition team indicate they are prepared to introduce and pass an economic recovery plan likely to cost $400 billion to $700 billion over two years. And they say that much of the spending will focus on accelerating the transition to cleaner sources of energy as well as more efficient energy use in buildings, homes, vehicles, industry, and communities.

The Apollo Alliance has been busy since the election in making this case in Congress and with the incoming administration. For example, investing in any or all of the more than 30 energy-efficient, cost-effective light and heavy rail transit projects that are ready to go around the country would put thousands to work immediately in high wage electrical, steel, concrete, carpenter, and other jobs in the construction trades.

Investing in other infrastructure projects can boost a sagging economy by adding an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 new jobs for every $1 billion invested. Moreover, such projects occur in communities, giving local workers a competitive edge and producing untold ripple effects in local economies.

Elena Foshay, a researcher on our staff, reports that an aggressive program to promote domestic manufacturing of renewable energy products alone could help create or retain 85,000 permanent green-collar jobs on the factory floor, not to mention hundreds of thousands more indirect jobs in the local economy. It also would benefit up to 70,000 U.S. firms capable of making the required components, most located in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, California, and the 16 other states hardest hit by manufacturing job losses.

Speaking of Michigan, the leaders of the Big Three American auto companies were back in Washington to ask Congress for $34 billion in loans. Lawmakers are as skeptical of the American auto industry as you are. In response to our last Apollo Weekly Update on the auto industry bailout, we received a torrent of views, which you can read in our Apollo Feedback feature here.

Knowing what you know now, is rejecting an auto bailout a sound decision? Is clean energy the way to go for rebuilding the economy? Do you like or dislike what you’re hearing from Washington and the new administration? Let me know and we’ll post your comment in our next Apollo Feedback feature. Send to keith@apolloalliance.org.

Data Points: The New Apollo Program Fact Sheet

The New Apollo Program will generate billions of dollars in savings each year through greater efficiency in buildings, industrial facilities, power plants, and the power grid.  It will generate and invest $500 billion over the next ten years and create more than five million high quality green-collar jobs.

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Apollo Feedback: Detroit Bailout Raises Support, Ire

Last week we let you know that in partnership with our members the Apollo Alliance supported government intervention to rescue the American auto industry with a $25 billion bridge loan. We reached this conclusion knowing of the industry’s long-time recalcitrance on fuel mileage, climate safeguards, product lines, and the imperious behavior of its chief executives, who in case you don’t know by now, flew to Washington last week on corporate jets and without any clear plan for how they would use the money.
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Apollo Weekly Update, 11/13/08: President-elect and New Principles

On August 4, 2008, Barack Obama formally unveiled a clean energy strategy to wean America from foreign oil and to begin solving climate change. His New Energy For America plan is a ten-year, $150 billion initiative that not coincidentally is the same title of our own 2004 study and entirely consistent with the goals of The New Apollo Program, which we rolled out in six states last month. All three plans call for scaling up the tools and practices of a clean energy economy, and charting a new development strategy for the United States.

Obama owned the clean energy message during the campaign. His victory is a powerful demonstration of the economic transformation most Americans expect and want his administration to lead.

We all know how hard the transition will be. But the new president’s work on clean energy will be helped by two new and powerful market forces that the Obama campaign helped to crystallize.

The first is the influence and relationship of the American economy with fossil fuel. Until very recently, one of the underlying principles of the American economy was that the more fossil fuel we used, the wealthier we became. That is no longer the case, not is it likely to be ever again. The more fossil fuel we use the more impoverished and endangered we are.

The second is a profound change in the relationship between environmental and economic principles. Since the early 1960s environmentalists have helped the nation understand how economic principles affect the environment. Economic development produces wealth. It also produces pollution and toxins and ill-advised construction that threatens species, babies, wild lands, and communities.

The Obama campaign, working on the idea that the Apollo Alliance elevated to national prominence since its founding more than four years ago, turned that nearly 50-year-old frame around. Look at the potential, he essentially argued, when environmental principles are applied to the economy. Energy efficiency, conservation, rapid transit, clean vehicles, biofuels, wind, and solar represent the most important new growth sectors in the nation, capable not only of fixing the economy and healing the environment, but also of producing millions of family-supporting jobs.

“We simply cannot pretend that we can drill our way out of this problem,” he said in August. “We need a much bolder and much bigger set of solutions. We have to make a serious, nationwide commitment to developing new sources of energy and we have to do it right away.”

The question, in the face of soaring budget deficits and financial crisis, is can he deliver? The answer, if you pay attention to our Web site, is that America’s clean energy economy already is unfolding. Twenty-nine states have enacted renewable energy standards to compel development of wind, solar, and other alternative energy sources in the utility industry. Clean energy production and development is a $25 billion-a-year industry, and the fastest growing industrial sector in the country. Clean energy is responsible for an estimated 500,000 new jobs since 2004, according to figures from states, investment analysts, and the wind, solar, geothermal, and other clean energy trade associations.

What’s needed from the federal government, say executives and elected leaders is the same thing that The New Apollo Program advocates and that President-elect Obama says he will act on quickly: A big, focused investment program to scale up the clean energy tools and technology that already exist.

Millions of family-supporting jobs are possible. Leo Gerard, the president of the United Steelworkers of America and an Apollo Alliance board member, is fond of telling audiences that it takes 26 tons of sheet steel and 19,000 parts to make and install a wind turbine generator.

Along with Obama’s victory, another place where America’s clean energy transition has made its presence known is in political campaigns. More than 70 percent of the transit measures on ballots across the country were approved, including the $10 billion bond for a regional high speed rail network in California. My colleague Heidi Pickman is documenting clean energy’s influence in election victories on the Apollo blog. If you know of clean energy electoral successes please email her.

We know you are intensely interested. When we asked last week what President Obama should do first, so many of you responded that we published your dispatches in two Apollo Feedback posts here and here.

The Apollo Alliance is in the thick of the national work to accelerate the clean energy, good jobs economy. We anticipate some big announcements over the next few weeks as the new administration and a new Congress start to put in place the clean energy, good jobs investments and policies that Americans last week overwhelmingly said they support.

Apollo Feedback: What Comes First For New President? Green-Collar Jobs, Economy, Clean Energy, Says Apollo Nation

When we asked what comes first for President-elect Barack Obama, almost 100 of you responded. The Economy. The War. Green-collar jobs. Sun. Wind. Zero-emission vehicles. Transit. One writer suggested Just For Men, to cover the new president’s sure-to-gray-hair. Take a look. So many of you replied that we divided the responses into two Feedback features. This is part one. Part two is here. Thanks so much.

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Apollo Weekly Update, 10/10/08: New Apollo Program Introduced In 3 States

This week, in events in California, Ohio, and Washington State the Apollo Alliance rolled out its comprehensive clean energy, good jobs investment strategy.  Frankly, it’s the most cogent economic plan out there to get America out of its financial mess.
 
In Columbus on Wednesday, Governor Ted Strickland essentially said as much during our Ohio event (see pix right). “If we do what the New Apollo Program encourages the next president and Congress to do we will see a renaissance in America’s economy and in Ohio’s economy,” he said. “I am happy to do what we can as Buckeyes to facilitate this effort.”

California Senator Barbara Boxer enthusiastically supported The New Apollo Program during the kickoff event on Saturday at the IBEW Training Center in San Leandro (see pix left). Washington State Congressman Jay Inslee, who’s made a career sponsoring clean energy legislation, and who headlines our event on Friday in Seattle, told us this week: “Some may think that it’s not the time for bold ideas like this one. I say it’s exactly the right time for this plan.”

You can follow the national tour on the Apollo Blog, in the Data Points features we are posting that make the case for strong federal action to accelerate the clean energy economy, and on The New Apollo Program page on our Web site. Thanks so much to the IBEW for hosting our events in Columbus and San Leandro, and to the Puget Sound Industrial Excellence Center for hosting the Seattle event. In Ohio and California, our union allies took us on terrific tours of their training facilities, where workers are preparing for the career-building jobs in installation, monitoring, analysis, and the other high skill trades of the clean energy economy (see pix below). 

Next week we roll into Denver, Detroit, and Portland, Oregon. 

We’re finding strong interest everywhere we go, and for good reason. The rollout occurs in the midst of the worst domestic and global financial crisis in nearly 80 years. The New Apollo Program doesn’t talk about a bail out. It talks about a build up, what Apollo Alliance Chairman Phil Angelides calls “a sweeping investment program to put America back to work.”

We asked Elena Foshay, our research associate, to dig into the numbers and tell us how fully implementing the 10-year, $500 billion New Apollo Program would affect the three states we’ve been to so far. Elena’s calculations are based on the Perryman Group’s data cited in Apollo’s 2004 report, New Energy for America. She found that California would gain $64 billion in new clean energy investments and nearly 500,000 permanent new green-collar jobs. Ohio would gain $22 billion in investment and 156,000 green-collar jobs; Washington State would gain $10 billion in new investment and nearly 82,000 new green-collar jobs.

With joblessness climbing and the economy in turmoil, those are the kind of results that make sense for now. As Carl Zichella, the Sierra Club’s director of western renewable programs noted on Saturday: “This is not a partisan plan; it is a roadmap to unite people in a common goal.  This will build public confidence that, despite the enormous mess the country is in now, that we can emerge from it stronger, more prosperous, and in possession of a cleaner environment for future generations.  If we work together the benefits of repowering our economy to a renewable future will belong to us all.”

Apollo Weekly Update, 9/26/08: Green Jobs Action Day, New Apollo Program Rollout

Tomorrow is the Green Jobs Now National Day of Action, which the Apollo Alliance has enthusiastically supported and helped to organize.  Co-Director Kate Gordon speaks tomorrow morning at a Day of Action in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.  The staff from our National office and from green builders Swinerton Inc. gathered in front of the company’s LEED Gold standard building to show that we are ready for green jobs.  Swinerton is also union and community friendly and happen to be our neighbors (see pix below.)

Turn out for events in your community and let folks at home and in Washington know that bailouts aren’t the answer to what ails America. Investment is. Investment in the clean energy sources, tools, buildings, homes, communities, and practices that are producing thousands of new jobs will, with the right focus from Washington, produce millions of green-collar jobs.

By the way, the $700 billion Wall Street “rescue” has been much on our minds, as I’m sure it’s been on yours. That’s about twice the amount that we’re sending overseas each year to pay for imported oil at current prices. The Apollo Alliance has a better way to really rescue the American economy and spend taxpayer money. For a lot less — $50 billion a year; $500 billion over 10 years — we can invest in building a clean energy, good jobs economy. 

Next month, starting in California on October 4, the Apollo Alliance introduces our The New Apollo Program to citizens and leaders in eight states. Neal Peirce, in a terrificnationally syndicated article this week, described the significance of The New Apollo Program to the nation’s economy and well-being. The goal of The New Apollo Program, Pierce writes “is nothing less than making the country truly competitive, a global leader (rather than a laggard) in the clean 21st century energy products and services.”

The details of The New Apollo Program are to:

Rebuild America clean and green, with energy efficient buildings and factories, mass transit, and renewable power sources.

Make it in America – rebuild the U.S. auto industry to produce efficient cars and trucks, and create new green jobs in clean energy manufacturing.

Help America compete, by investing in American made clean energy technologies instead of falling behind countries in Asia and Europe.

We’re asking all of our supporters to support the plan, to fight for clean energy and good jobs. Sign on and add your voice to our growing movement.

Look for the Apollo Alliance’s new Web site, which is set to launch on Monday morning. We’ve posted your views on what’s occurring in the clean energy economy and policy debate in a new Apollo Feedback feature. We’re holding on to our hats here this week, as you are too, no doubt. For those of you who participate in the Green Jobs Now National Day of Action, let me know how it turned out.

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