Topic #1 for the Upcoming White House Jobs Summit: How to Keep Clean Energy Jobs Here at Home

In times like these, with unemployment at its highest rate in more than a quarter century, President Obama's announcement that the White House will hold a jobs summit in December is welcome news. The nation's focus must be on the critical issue of job creation.

A topic that should be high on the agenda at the jobs summit is what lawmakers can do to prevent jobs created by new U.S. policies and taxpayer investments from going overseas, which is exactly what is happening with thousands of new manufacturing jobs in the burgeoning clean energy economy. Recent news that a 36,000-acre wind farm development in West Texas will use imported wind turbines and create more jobs in China than in America was the latest in a string of setbacks to U.S. job creation efforts. We need to turn that ship around and bring those jobs back to U.S. shores right now.

As cities, states, and the federal government enact measures to slow global warming and achieve energy independence, manufacturing jobs are being created to produce the component parts of renewable energy systems like solar panels and wind turbines.

The problem is that -- unlike home weatherization or green construction, which by their nature must happen locally -- the manufacture of clean energy systems can take place anywhere in the world. Indeed, green manufacturing jobs are already going overseas, and have been for some time. Seventy percent of America's renewable energy systems and components are manufactured abroad. Our European and Asian counterparts -- China in particular -- are taking steps to capture these jobs, while U.S. manufacturing states are suffering unemployment rates not seen since the Great Depression.

Unfortunately, this trend has plagued American manufacturing for decades, which is a shame because right now we need every job we can get. Manufacturing jobs tend to pay well and have traditionally been the ticket to the middle class for millions of American families. It's also a shame because when clean energy manufacturing facilities are located abroad, America's clean energy research and development capacity suffers. When manufacturing engineers are in China and R&D engineers are in Silicon Valley, opportunities for collaboration and innovation are severely diminished, hurting the competitive position of U.S. companies in the global clean energy economy.

The President and Congress must take action now to stem the flow of clean energy manufacturing jobs overseas for both economic and national security reasons. Absent clear and deliberate policies to keep green manufacturing jobs here, the market will do is what it has done in the past: continue to send good manufacturing jobs overseas, leaving U.S. workers on the sidelines collecting unemployment checks and leaving our nation's security to whims of other nations.

The first thing the federal government can do is adopt policies that increase demand for clean energy. That means passing a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill that includes a cap on carbon, a national renewable energy standard, and national building and appliance energy efficiency standards.

Then, just as China is doing, Congress must offer incentives to persuade clean energy manufacturing companies to set up shop in the U.S. so we can meet heightened demand for clean energy with a homegrown supply. This practice is commonplace in other parts of the world and is even employed by U.S. states competing against each other to attract or keep companies in their locales.

The next critical step is to put in place a local content requirement, also called a "Buy American" policy, that either requires or gives preference to companies that use a certain percentage of components that are manufactured in the United States, whenever there are taxpayer dollars involved. Local content requirements have proven extremely successful at creating and retaining manufacturing jobs, despite the free trade purists who deride them.

We should also consider adjusting U.S. trade policies so that when we do adopt national clean energy and climate policies, our trade policies don't effectively give preference to products that are produced in countries with lower environmental standards.

Finally, we should help traditional U.S. manufacturers retool to enter the clean energy economy. Former auto parts and construction equipment manufacturers could easily transition to become manufacturers of electric vehicle parts, wind turbine components, and other clean energy systems and parts. A bill introduced by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio would establish a revolving loan fund to help small and mid-sized manufacturers retool their factories to produce clean technologies. It would also increase support for Manufacturing Extension Partnerships (MEPs) that link smaller manufacturers to supply chains and markets for their goods. Similar provisions were already passed by the House as part of the American Clean Energy and Security Act; now the Senate must do its part to help manufacturers access the emerging clean energy marketplace.

As the U.S. economy struggles to emerge from prolonged recession and unemployment rates continue to skyrocket, President Obama and Congress can ill afford to let more good jobs flee our country. If this issue goes unaddressed at the upcoming White House jobs summit, more American families will suffer.

The ship is sailing away, but it's not too late to bring it back to port.

Phil Angelides is the Chairman of the Board of the Apollo Alliance and the former Treasurer of the State of California.

 

Follow Phil Angelides on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ApolloAlliance

Comments

[NorthEasternEE]

The demand for renewable energy is driven only by government mandates like the Massachusetts Green Communities Act, which requires that 25% of our energy comes from renewable energy by the year 2030. Renewable energy sources, like wind turbines, are intermittent and tend to produce power independent of demand. The promise of pollution free energy is very attractive, but, in reality, the need to balance the intermittent power produced by renewable energy sources with fossil fuel power plants, negates any value that can be gained.
From an Economics point of view, state mandates, and the federal Cap and Trade bill, will more than double the cost of electricity. What we need to decide is whether our economy can stand the high increase in the cost of energy.
Unless the rest of the world is ready to join in the effort to save us from Global Warming, the answer is a very definite NO.
China, India, Russia and others are not dumb enough to sign on to saving the world from Global Warming. However, China is smart enough to recognize that they can reap huge economic rewards by using our government funded research to manufacture and sell us the hardware our government is mandating for renewable energy. The recent fiasco with the 80 million dollars of tax money that governor Deval Patrick wasted on Evergreen Solar, who is moving to China, is all the proof we need.
Unless we reverse course, we will end up as China’s slaves.

[sheila]

Puh-leaze. The Green Energy economy should ALSO BE TAKING PLACE WITHIN OUR BUILT ENVIRONMENT, instead of some devastating, destructive monopolistic Big Wind, Big Solar and Big Transmission boondoggle. Why aren't you fighting for policies that get solar panels on every sunny rooftop and pay US for clean power WE produce, instead of fighting against us and pushing for Big Energy subsidies that will completely destroy millions of acres of intact, functioning ecosystem.

You would think that somebody in CA's government might get a clue and start supporting CA residents instead of Chevron, Sempra, Goldman Sachs, etc. but so far, nobody has. This state is TOTALLY GREENWASHING horrible projects and ignoring real solutions like GENEROUS FEED IN TARIFFS and AB 811 loans.

You want to keep green jobs at home? Support local, point of use solutions like rooftops solar, efficiency upgrades and storage, not Big Energy desert death squads.

[Thirdcoastkites]

The evolution in our collective thinking around renewable energy and a green economy is both heartening and frustrating. It's heartening if you think about where our national conversation was just a handful of years ago...gree­n was associated with tree-hugging hippies, now green means money again (now that's something Americans can understand). But it is also frustrating in the sense that there is still a stunning lack of creative foresight when it comes to what green could mean...gre­en can conceptually span the entirety of the economy, but nationally we are still having a rather narrow conversation.
http://www.thirdcoastkites.com
We promote wind energy, and if you put a kite in your hand or get on a kiteboard, you will have a tactile experience with a vaguely understood, yet ancient power source. Kiting is just one minor example of an ancillary green industry..­.I like to think of it as a "gateway" to green.

[jrutle]

It will be a shame if we let the green technology revolution get away from us as happened with IT. The green economy should be the foundation for sustainable growth and development so that we don't rebuild the economy on the same pile of sand as President Obama warned when he first went into office. The job summit can, and should, be an important opportunity for discussing methods for stimulating green industries. One topic that should be discussed at the job summit, but won't be I'm sure, is eliminating the massive amount of subsidies the oil industry receives, which disguises the true cost of fossil fuels and is impeding alternative energy development. These include direct government expenditures as well as tax breaks. If these subsidies were taken away and alternative energy allowed to compete on a level playing field, Americans would more readily see the economic benefits of converting to clean energy.