There is a lot of talk these days about “green shoots” signaling economic recovery. But for millions of Pennsylvanians the end of the recession will not be a recovery until the job market rebounds. With national unemployment expected to rise over 10 percent, we have to match these green shoots with an investment in green jobs.
Moody’s Economy.com reports that this decade the housing sector accounted for 40 percent of U.S. job growth. We all know we cannot depend on housing to drive our economy in the next decade. New technology and innovation powers growth. We need to capitalize on a new generation of green jobs: science and technology jobs for research and development; manufacturing jobs to build turbines, solar panels, batteries and the next phase of transportation; and construction jobs to retrofit homes and factories and lay down a new-energy infrastructure.
Pennsylvania has the industrial base and proud manufacturing tradition to take the lead on, and benefit from, the movement to a clean, unlimited domestic energy supply.
My grandfather was a steelworker in Coatesville, Pa. The steel industry, and the many towns and families it supports, has been in tough times for generations. But now we’re beginning to see a change. In Bucks County, the site of an old U.S. Steel manufacturing plant now hosts a wind-power facility that employs hundreds of Pennsylvanians, many of them members of the United Steelworkers.
It’s a misconception that the interests of manufacturing and environmentalism are opposed. In fact, they now depend on each other like never before. We cannot realize energy independence without a major effort in manufacturing and construction, and we cannot expect old-energy jobs to power our future economy.
This is why one of the leading green jobs organizations, the Blue Green Alliance, unites the largest manufacturers’ union in North America and the nation’s oldest environmental organization — the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club.
Pennsylvania especially stands to gain from a commitment to green energy. According to the Renewable Energy Policy Project, our state ranks sixth in the nation in potential new manufacturing jobs from renewable energy development. A Rand study shows that investments in clean energy create at least three times the number of jobs as investment in fossil fuels, and the green jobs bill I helped pass in the House of Representatives could create more than 71,000 new Pennsylvania jobs and lower our unemployment rate from 5.4 percent to 4.3 percent.
To support this manufacturing recovery, we must make a clear and certain commitment to clean energy, including a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) that requires a certain amount of energy to come from renewable sources.
Pennsylvania is already benefiting as one of 28 states with an RES. Passage of the state RES gave the wind-energy company Gamesa the incentive to open a wind turbine blade factory in Cambria County that employs 300 people (among its 800 employees state wide), including many unionized steelworkers who had lost their mill jobs.
Green jobs created in Pennsylvania will stay in Pennsylvania. You cannot ship a factory overseas to be retrofitted. The work of installing a smart grid cannot be outsourced.
However, many of the leading renewable energy companies that have facilities in the Commonwealth, like Gamesa, Iberdrola and Conergy, are European-owned. China has recognized what’s at stake as well, and has invested billions. We cannot let America, for the first time in our history, fall behind.
We have taken some important steps this year with the $60 billion in green investments in the Economic Stimulus Bill, the $2.2 billion energy efficiency and renewable energy investment in the Energy and Water Appropriation, and the House passage of green jobs legislation.
We’re starting to see results from these efforts. Brent Alderfer is a clean-energy pioneer who founded Community Energy Inc. in Delaware County, the first wind power company east of the Mississippi. In 2006, as uncertainty due to the country’s on-again off-again commitment to renewables scared off domestic capital he was forced to turn to a Spanish firm to build and own the wind projects. Now, prospects have changed. New federal incentives and the potential for future policy commitments are making American-owned renewable energy companies viable. Two months ago, Mr. Alderfer and his investment partners were able to again strike out in their own to build solar and wind generation here in the U.S.
More needs to be done. We need a national RES of at least 20 percent by 2020, a $1.5 billion strategic clean energy investment over 10 years, an extension of tax credits for renewables, and a job-creating cap-and-trade system to bolster American-owned clean energy.
Pennsylvania manufacturing is not a thing of the past. With the right investment and right commitment, it will be the key to our recovery and our future.
Rep. Joe Sestak (PA-7) is a former 3-star admiral and a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate.