Over the last year, the Obama Administration has been focused on many issues, none more important than creating jobs. We are working hard to sustain economic growth and spur renewed hiring for millions of Americans who need and want work, but cannot find it.
As I have said from day one, my goal is "A Good Job for Everyone." A good job is one that can support a family by increasing incomes and narrowing the wage gap. A good job is safe and secure, and gives people a voice in the workplace. A good job is sustainable and innovative -- like green jobs -- that export products not paychecks. And a good job is one that will help to rebuild the middle class.
In this economy that's a tall order, however I am more confident than ever that we will reach this goal because of the steps we have taken and the investments we have made in the American worker.
Just weeks after taking office, President Obama signed the historic Recovery Act and this Administration has taken bold steps to break the back of this recession. The Department of Labor moved quickly to protect workers who lost their jobs and provided new worker training opportunities for those looking to upgrade their skills.
And as we help workers through these challenging times, our real focus is investing in their future and today I announced nearly $100 million in green jobs training grants. These grants are part of a larger Recovery Act initiative -- totaling $500 million -- to fund workforce development projects promoting economic growth by preparing workers for careers in the energy efficiency and renewable energy industries.
In addition, some $28 million of today's funds will support projects in communities impacted by the restructuring of the auto industry.
Twenty-five projects across the country will receive grants ranging from $1.4 to $5 million each and are built on strategic partnerships requiring labor and business to work together.
This investment will help American workers succeed while laying the foundation for our country's long-term competitiveness by preparing workers for a range of careers including: hybrid/electric auto technicians, weatherization specialists, wind and energy auditors, and solar panel installers.
Without a doubt the Recovery Act is helping to pull our economy back from the brink and the Department of Labor is working tirelessly to ensure that we fulfill our responsibility to provide workers with the assistance they need today to plan for the careers of tomorrow and to help them find good jobs. A good job for everyone has been my goal from day one and it will continue to be in 2010.
We still have work to do before we can be sure that all Americans have access to good jobs, but I am confident that we will reach that goal. By working together with our partners, we can turn our economy around and create pathways to success for all of Americans.
For more about our green jobs initiatives, visit www.dol.gov/green.
Follow Sec. Hilda Solis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@HildaSolisDOL
Rooftop pv 3 cents solar, and Waste Biofuels.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/research?action=profile
If you want green jobs in the U.S., simply offer companies ZERO government taxation to set up shop in the U.S..
If you really want to accelerate the GREEN jobs, just simply release the HYDROGEN & HEMP economies in the U.S.. You can not get much greener than that!
Seriously.
Yes, like in Sim City.
http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/e/fr/tnks/Nni20090627D27JFF04.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2008/12/will-obama-pursue-space-based.html
This has to be a misprint.
Who's in charge of this clusterf**k program, ExxonMobil?
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included more than $80 billion in clean energy investments that will jump-start our economy and build the clean energy jobs of tomorrow:
* $11 billion for a bigger, better, and smarter grid that will move renewable energy from the rural places it is produced to the cities where it is mostly used, as well as for 40 million smart meters to be deployed in American homes.
* $5 billion for low-income home weatherization projects.
* $4.5 billion to green federal buildings and cut our energy bill, saving taxpayers billions of dollars.
* $6.3 billion for state and local renewable energy and energy efficiency efforts.
* $600 million in green job training programs – $100 million to expand line worker training programs and $500 million for green workforce training.
* $2 billion in competitive grants to develop the next generation of batteries to store energy.
Now none of this helps American workers at all. But Obama doesn't really care. He wants to help Wall Street and he sees Wall Street as America. So when he says he wants America back to work what he means is multi-national corporations.
Thats whats been happening for years and got us into this mess. Nothing new just because its green. A jobs a job and we bee voting in the very people that have allowed our corporations to do this,
We even gave them a tax cut to pay for the cost of moving our jobs overseas.
These corporations he listens to are telling him that American workers are just too expensive and we all need to make less so that they can make even more. So he is using the full force of the federal government, using outrageous tools like H-1B and B1 work visas to even import foreign labor into the US to replace Americans in America!
This is the same thing Bush did.
A green job is only as good as the Goverment funds that support it or the laws they pass to mandate it. If you give people a choice between a $150 energy bill from coal or a $250 bill from a windmill, take a guess where the majority will come down.
In other words, no funding from Government . . . no green jobs because the private sector has no interest in that type of investment because their customers won't pay for the techonolgy unless someone forces them to.
"we will have to focus on the facts and not on such tall tales." (spanish study)
The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that American consumers will save $95.5 billion from lower energy costs by 2030 if the government adopts the national renewable electricity standard currently being debated in Congress. A national renewable electricity standard, a key piece of this legislation proposed by Representatives Waxman and Markey, would save households and businesses in every state billions of dollars in electricity and natural gas bills. This would correspond to more than $5 billion in savings each for California, Texas, and New York.
The bottom line is that it is in our best interest to make a serious investment in clean and renewable energy and follow Spain’s lead. To get there,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/05/spain_tall_tales.html
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/05/warming_fiction.html
If I went to your property and dumped mercury and arsenic and lead into your land and your water you would sue me for everything I have. But these coal corporations are shielded from liability. So they get to pollute and devalue my property. Look at the recent coal ash mess. The government is protecting these corporations from their full responsibility! That is corporate communism!
Make coal plants and coal miners live by the same laws the rest of us have to live by! Letting corporations shield themselves with corporate immunity is a huge federal subsidy for polluters!
CA opposition to solar-farm siting. Wealthy MA Senator's opposing wind-farms (and now Native Tribes joining the opposition). Near unanimity of Greenie opposition to Nuclear power generation. Historical opposition to hydro-electric generation.
And now, the politicization of the manufacturing processes, demands that the work be performed at inflated Union wages--yielding less output (finished product) for more input (Stimulus spending dollars).
Until the coalition of the unwilling step aside, we will be buring fossil fuels until they are exhausted.
Without Government, green technology isn't even a thought.
If the Govt. was serious about "helping", they could fast track approvals for wind, solar, tidal, nuclear, etc.--obviating many of the environmental and work rules that add costs and delays to the implementation of the new technologies.
They don't. For purely provincial reasons.
Congress and the Labor and Environmental lobbies are SO unserious.
And lets be honest, the manufacturing of wind mills will be done in China or Mexico.
The final fabrication of the turbine blades may well be done in Mexico or China. So let's capture the Engineering, the Generation technology and Transmission improvements HERE--a product, hopefully, of our highly competitive education and research institutions.
Moreover, there is LOTS of infrastructure build-out that will be done in situ--that is ours for the taking--if we move. Pronto.
Millions of Americans out of work, their savings exhausted, houses in foreclosure, best paying jobs sent to third world countries to be done by slave labor because of laws passed by Congress to allow the corporations to do so. American jobs, gone forever, all with the blessing of Congress. More kick-backs from that too.
We're broke. And now, when it's really way too late, we hear that One Hundred Million-With-An-M will be used for jobs creations? One Hundred Million for the 99% of the country that has been looted and plundered by Wall Street. It's not even close to being enough.
I've got an idea. Why doesn't my government indict, prosecute, imprison the Wall Street criminals, seize their assets, and use that to help the citizens? Go use extroardinary rendition (kidnapping) on all the off-shore private equity and hedge funds, seize those assets, then put on the front page the identity of all the rich people and all the politicians who have been hiding their money off-shore to avoid paying taxes, and to hide the bribes they've been taking. How about if the government starts to serve the people instead of just doing the bidding of the rich. Fat chance.
Citizens can stop the last two with a united front, but the GOPers think it is a good idea to spend $billions chasing ghosts in the desert and giving more $$ to Big Pharma, so only Dems support those two ideas.
It matters what the $$$ is spent for. Business people say, "You have to spend money to make money."
If we spend money on nothing, how much do you think we can make on those investments?
And as for seizing assets, that is what banana republics do. Is that the best you got?
MARCH 31, 2009
U.S. Bailouts So Far Total $2.98 Trillion, Official Says
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/business/21qanda.html
The recovery package cannot go higher than $700 billion without additional legislation. As for that figure, it lies between the optimistic estimate of $500 billion and the pessimistic guess of $1 trillion about the cost of fixing the financial mess. But the $700 billion is in addition to an $85 billion agreement on a bailout of the insurance giant American International Group, plus $29 billion in support that the government pledged in the marriage of Bear Stearns and JPMorgan Chase. On top of all that, the Congressional Budget Office says the federal bailout of the mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could cost $25 billion.
h
ttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/29/obama-18b-in-wall-street_n_162305.html
The president's comments, made with new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner at his side, (that) employees of the New York financial world garnered an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses last year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/opinion/10rich.html
As Paul Volcker, the chairman of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said , there is not “one shred of neutral evidence” that any financial innovation of the past 20 years has led to economic growth. Citi, that “innovative” banking supermarket, destroyed far more wealth than Weill can or will ever give away.
Have the government replace its aging fleet of cars with all electric vehicles, provided they are manufactured in the USA. A Detroit order like that would put a lot of people to work and bring down the costs of these vehicles for the rest of us.
I see Obama making the same mistake. I think he should radically drop taxes on the middle class. Basically irresponsibly low. Then the debate totally changes. The GOP can't use lowering taxes as an issue. And everyone will have to agree to raise taxes.
I think it would be interesting. Its not like we aren't already totally broke.
LET THE MARKET WORK?!??!?!?
Have you any idea how much in subsidies go to these oil companies?
Apparently, you do not.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/05/warming_fiction.html
Investing $100 billion over two years in green energy would generate 2 million jobs, creating four times more jobs than if the same amount were spent in the oil sector.
And these jobs would be concentrated in manufacturing and construction—two of the worst affected sectors by the recession.
Investing in green jobs could therefore act as an economic stimulus and help low skill workers such as construction workers, roofers, and assemblers.
Before you say it I know American Progress is a liberal site but please provide proof before saying they are lying.