With the economy on the minds of millions of Americans, President Obama continues to make job creation this administration's top priority. Today the U.S Environmental Protection Agency is following through on that priority by supporting the creation of good, green jobs for Americans across the country.
The EPA is awarding more than $6.2 million in workforce development and job training grants to 21 communities nationwide. Organizations receiving grant support -- ranging from a state environmental agency to community-based groups -- will use it to train job-seekers, giving them the tools they need to manage, assess and clean up contaminated properties known as brownfields. In addition to providing marketable skills, part of the grant funding will help place those newly trained workers into available employment -- creating a straight line between our investment and new jobs.
The environmental, health and economic benefits of brownfields cleanups are extensive and long-lasting. Brownfields sites are places like old gas stations, closed smelters and other industrial and commercial properties that have been left too contaminated to be safely redeveloped. The training programs supported by today's grants will help graduates revitalize these sites with skills like solid waste management, underground storage tank removal, green construction and clean energy installation.
But this is about more than just creating jobs for one or two cleanup projects. The workers trained under these grants will be strengthening the conditions needed for healthy, sustainable job growth in their own communities. Rather than sitting idle and posing threats to the health of local residents, the revitalized sites can be safely transformed into parks or new economic developments. Since its inception, the brownfields program has sparked the transformation of once-abandoned and contaminated lands into business centers, recreational areas and other developments. That renewal sparks job creation, economic growth and healthier, stronger communities to raise a family and start a business.
The public and private partnerships fostered through the brownfields program have helped create more than 70,000 new jobs. And, as of June 1, 2011, the brownfields job training program alone has trained and placed almost 5,400 people in full-time, sustainable jobs.
Under President Obama's leadership, we will continue to push for good, green jobs in communities across the nation. It makes perfect sense to seize the abundant opportunities to put people to work protecting the air we breathe, the water we drink and the lands where we build our communities. We can get the important economic benefits of new jobs, while we help make our communities better places to raise a family free from health risks, or to start a business knowing that problems in the environment aren't going to turn away customers or make workers call in sick.
In other words, we can show that we don't have to choose between breathing clean air and drinking clean water or creating good jobs. We can do them all at the same time.
Lisa P. Jackson is the Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
John W. Whitehead: The Military Industrial Complex: The Enemy From Within
Can 'Green Jobs' Stimulate The Economy? : NPR
Green Career | Green Careers | Green Job | Green Jobs | Green Economy
USGBC: Green Building Creates Green Jobs for a Green Economy
Can Green Jobs Save the Economy? - Real Time Economics - WSJ
The Truth About Green Jobs | Mother Jones
California Green Jobs Growth | California leading growth in ...
Getting in your own way with ideologically-based programs, rather than the demonstrated efficiency and productivity of the private sector and entrepreneurs is just wrong.
Private Investment in Brownfields development is 27 times as much as the government's.
That doesn't mean the private sector won't do the job, it just means that without energy and operating subsidies, these jobs aren't profitable, therefore business will not "waste" shareholder investments in low-return/no-return on investment jobs.
Until energy taxes force conservation and development of alternative energy sources, the ROI for private investors just isn't there. However, I think the ROI is there for investment in Zero Sum Pollution technologies.
See http://scienceray.com/biology/we-want-zero-sum-pollution-now/
own garbage. StewardshiÂp is the task of managing the Earth’s life support
systems, which have been neglected and abused by a convoluted and
skewed crime cartel who have no boundaries in their pursuit of
GGlutinousÂ, OOvert, PPredatoriÂcal consumptioÂn. Expunging cleanup
cost and passing them on to future generationÂs is the real National DEBT.
Deficient spending of our natural treasures and leaving them violated with
hazardous toxic zones. After cleanup these sites can become economic
growth opportunitÂies for new industry and or housing probably both? The
previous owners had years to do what was responsiblÂe But instead took the
quick profits and left the unhealthy brown fields for US.
However, trying to tie the less-than-admired results to the "GOP" is unfair. There are many Democrats involved in the regulatory and political oversight of these industries as well; ALL have failed at their job of representing the wishes and welfare of the Citizenry.
from anybody at anytime. the Just Say No gang does not SI the righting on the wall.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/devon-swezey/the-coming-clean-tech-cra_b_892582.html
Green jobs are government jobs because without government money, 90% of the green industry dries up in a week.
So get rid of the EPA and the irresponsible companies can go back to business as usual?
Privatize the profit and socialize the debt for clean up and poisoning the neighborhood.
Enron book keeping . Gotcha.
The EPA has identified roughly 15 million acres of Superfund, brownfield, abandoned mining and ag lands, etc. near transmission, that could be used for renewable energy development, so why is the BLM shoving millions of acres of dead wilderness down America's throat as their "clean energy" policy?
So, there you go. problem solved.
And, don't confuse licensing resource exploration with "free rides to pollution." As noted, we can have both. As also noted, ove a thousand species a week go extinct and nobody every notices nature's failed '"experiments." We should however, recognize that needless exploitation of species without remedial-not ideological-programs is wrong.
We need to invest in engineering first and then it will trickle down to manufacturing. This will take at least a decade.
You are economically on point.
I just don't believe that the increases in transportation costs alone, to say nothing of the rapidly declining wage differentials between the U.S. and China, Phillipines, Vietnam, and many other places doesn't provide a real opportunity to "remake America" with new manufacturing technologies.
I also know that business is just "doing it's job" by seeking .lower costs and higher profits, but sooner or later, business MUST realize that their long-term interests are best served by developing and maintaining U.S. technology leadership.
It's no accident the Boeing, Caterpillar and others maintain leading market shares in their industries, and are U.S. based. They are willing to desing industry-leading products and let a fair marketplace decide.
What we must be on guard about is so-called Fair Trade agreements, which open up markets for our businesses, but conversely-sometimes, not all the time-wind up costing U.S. consumers/taxpayers more.
Too bad it's partly true, as well.
As to sepculators, I'd venture that ten to fifteen percent of the current price is speculators, but demand is catching up, therefore the reason they are in the market. I've opined that if the CFTC (Commodities Commission) would require 100% margin for Future's contracts in Energy resources, the speculators would quit energy markets, and find newecommodity "casino's" to bet their (leveraged-to-the-hilt) chips.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/08/another-record-for-u-s-renewable-electricity
About U.S. Renewable energy. It shows May of 2009 with the U.S. using 13% renewables to generate electricity. Surprisingly this actually compares well to the European countries.
and European renewable usage.
http://www.energy.eu/#Industrial
Maybe I'm Misinterpreting the information.
This sounds like either corporate welfare or some kind of labor giveaway packaged as a jobs plan, except that it doesn't even create jobs: it only trains people to do jobs that MIGHT get funded SOMETIME in the future IF somebody (another government agency or corporation) chooses to fund them in the future.
I'm also highly skeptical of the "70,000 jobs created" statistic. Chances are that stat is based on every job that was formerly on one of these sites. The ones that are in useful locations don't need specially government-trained workers to justify cleanup costs, and the ones that aren't in good locations won't be any more viable just because somebody trained people to do them.
This is just baffling.
Rule No. 2: Apply Rule No. 1 to any consideration of government "investment" in programs and enterprises better carried out by private enterprise.
Rule No. 3 : Know the difference.
Maybe instead of a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) it's time for a Oceans Authority (OA)! This will not only create jobs but do something good for the planet and many of its other species for once!
Something to dream about!
POSSIBLE
TVA did wonderful things for Appalachia. I think it good do great things for the Gulf coast. Look at it as a capitol investment in the different regions with prosperity would come a stronger tax stream.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/51136110/Big-Solar-s-Footprint-on-Public-Lands
To replace a typical coal generated power plant needs about 8 square miles of land converted to industrial use!
Wind is better at 0.8 square miles per kilowatt. Mind you I'm not a fan of the site but I believe their calculations of how much wind they need per megawatt is a good approximation.
I would like to replace all coal generation plants, I'm just worried about the loss of so much land based on current technology.
http://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/04/12/winds-big-footprint/
As for wind I would move as many of these projects to our surrounding oceans. There some interesting discoveries concerning coral growth and electricity. Seems with a little electricity you can get coral growths of 2 inches per year! In coral growth terms this is warp speed! The interesting thing is you sequester a lot of CO2 to make calcium carbonate. This reduces the acidity of the oceans another good thing. And of course provides habitat for all manner of species.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/09/biorock_coral.php