“There is no greater priority for our country right now than to stimulate the economy and to create new jobs through boosting public investments in infrastructure and in new clean energy projects,” said Delahunt. “I support President-Elect Obama’s initiatives to boost federal support for solar, wind and marine renewable energy projects. These are the industries of the future and will create millions of new jobs in our country and thousands here in Massachusetts.”
The Obama-Biden New Energy for America plan calls for investing $150 billion over the next ten years in several clean energy initiatives. It calls for 10 percent of our electricity coming from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025 as well as implementing a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.
A recent analysis by the University of Massachusetts-Amherst concluded that a $100 billion dollar Clean Energy initiative will:
- Create nearly four times more total jobs than spending the same amount of money within the oil industry, and 300,000 more jobs than a similar amount of spending directed toward household consumption.
- Create three times the number of good jobs — paying at least $16 dollars an hour — as spending the same amount of money within the oil industry.
- Reduce the unemployment rate to 4.4 percent from 5.7 percent (calculated within the framework of U.S. labor market conditions in July 2008).
- Bolster employment especially in construction and manufacturing. Construction employment has fallen from 8 million to 7.2 million jobs over the past two years due to the housing bubble collapse. The Green Recovery program can, at the least, bring back these lost 800,000 construction jobs.
According to Delahunt, a recent report commissioned by the American Solar Energy Society titled, “Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency: Economic Drivers for the 21st Century” concluded that:
- Renewable energy and energy efficiency industries generated 8.5 million jobs and nearly $1 trillion in revenue in the United States in 2006.
- By 2030, these sectors could generate up to 40 million new jobs and $4.5 trillion in revenue in the United States.
- The 40 million jobs that could be created in renewable energy and energy efficiency are not just engineering-related but also include millions of new jobs in manufacturing, construction, accounting, and management.
Please click here for a detailed breakdown of jobs in the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Industry in 2006.
Delahunt has also supported federal jobs training funding for so-called “green collar jobs.” In August, he joined with his collegues to urge the House Leadership to include funding to expand job training for America’s emerging “green” workforce in a second economic stimulus package. The new jobs training program was authorized under Title X of P.L. 110-140, the Green Jobs Act, a measure to boost employment in the renewable energy industry. The Green Jobs Act was enacted into law last December and stipulated that a program be put in place to fund worker training for clean energy jobs within 6 months of its passage. Funding is expected to be appropriated next year.
To read the letter, please click here.
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