green jobs

Revive Manufacturing with Green Jobs

Dave Johnson — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 08:27:07 -0400

There is a green manufacturing revolution occurring in the world -- the rest of it, anyway -- and it is on track to create millions of jobs and trillions of dollars of new wealth. The Take Back The American Dream conference session titled "Stop Outsourcing the Dream: How America Can Revive Manufacturing in a Green Industrial Revolution" discussed how to bring a chunk of the green manufacturing revolution to the US to create badly-needed jobs.

Scott Paul of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) started by explaining we have lost 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since 2000, mostly to China, with 50,000 factories closed. For those who say we don’t need manufacturing, he explained that innovation comes from manufacturing, so we lost that, too. 90% of patents, 70% of private research and development come out of production so we have to have production or lose innovation.

Congressman Chris Murphy (D-CT ) said it’s easy to figure out what to do because we have this play out in countries that have lapped us, so we know from them what works. They identify a quickly developing manufacturing market and capture the seedlings of it before it takes full root. Renewable energy is at top of the list because it will create millions of jobs, so we need a small public subsidy to create the market demand that creates manufacturing capacity.

“As industries begin to take hold in other countries, every month we don’t play catch up is another month we’ll never get that capacity back.”

We are lacking a rather small subsidy – investment or carbon tax or cap and trade would make them immediately competitive here in US.

Leo Gerard of the United Steelworkers talked about the need for a national energy conservation initiative, retrofitting buildings, the energy grid, and a focus on domestic-content requirements in renewable energy for our military needs.

Gerard said you don’t create real wealth by flipping coupons or hamburgers, you create it by taking real things and turning them into things of value. And those things of value are turned into other things of value and all of a sudden you have a wind turbine with thousands of parts made here. You can’t have a clean economy without good jobs and can’t have good jobs without a clean economy.

Leo Hindery of the New America Foundation talked about the need for a national manufacturing policy.

We have 29 million men and women looking for a full-time job, 150,000 entering the workforce every month, that means we have to fund 22 milion jobs today, next month it is 22,150,000 then 22,300,000 the next months, etc. This can only be done by increasing manufacturing. (And by the way, he said, where Scott Paul said we lost 50,000 factories between 2000 and 2009, that number is not 58,000.)

He thinks the percent of our workforce in manufacturing to shoot for is probably 25% - well above where we are. If you look at successful countries like Germany, they have 25%. But to prove this is the number he’s working with top economists to put together studies, establish the right number so we do not establish policy and only get to 11% when we need perhaps 25%.

What’s Green, White and Blue? American Jobs

Leo Gerard — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:05:12 -0400

Red, as in furiously red, defined the day last fall when a consortium of companies announced it wanted $450 million in U.S. stimulus money to build a wind farm in Texas, creating 2,000 jobs in China and 300 in America.

Now, nine months later, things have cooled down and turned around. In a deal with the United Steelworkers (USW), two Chinese companies have agreed to build as much of the wind turbines as possible in America, using American-made steel, and creating perhaps 1,000 American jobs.

The deal is a result of white collar Chinese executives negotiating with blue collar union officers to create green collar jobs in the U.S. The agreement defies stereotypes about unions as constantly combative, excessively expensive and environmentally challenged. The USW has a track record of engaging with enlightened CEOs for mutual benefit. It has a long green history. And it has worked to return off-shored jobs to the U.S.

The USW, like the Democrats in the House and Senate with their Make It in America program, is devoted to preserving and creating family-supporting, prosperity-generating manufacturing jobs in America. And if they’re green, all the better.

Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross has first-hand experience negotiating with unions, including the USW, to sustain U.S. manufacturing. He describes it positively. Here he is on PBS’ Charlie Rose on Aug. 2:

“I have found the leaders of big industrial unions, the steelworkers, the auto workers, they understand dynamics of industry at least as well as the senior management of the companies.”

Ross talked to Rose about dealing with the USW during the time when he was buying LTV Steel:

“We worked out a contract that took 32 job classifications down to five, changed work rules to make it more flexible and most important of all, we put in a blue collar bonus system. . .We became the most efficient steel company in America. We were making steel with less than one man hour per ton. The Chinese at the time were using six man hours per ton. We were actually exporting some steel to China.”

Ross accomplished that while paying among the highest wages for manufacturing workers in America.

The USW approached the Chinese companies that planned the $1.5 billion Texas wind farm, A-Power Energy Generation Systems Ltd. and Shenyang Power Group, the same way it did Ross. The meetings occurred with the help of U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a private equity firm that facilitates international financing and investment in renewable energy projects. Jinxiang Lu, chairman and chief executive of Shenyang Power, said talking to the union enabled him to see its “vision for win-win relationships between manufacturers and workers.”

For the USW, this deal means the Chinese firms will initially buy approximately 50,000 tons of steel manufactured in unionized American mills to fabricate towers and rebar for the 615 megawatt wind farm in Texas, will employ Americans at a wind turbine assembly plant to be built in Nevada, and will employ more American workers in green jobs at plants constructing the blades, towers and thousands of other wind turbine parts.

For the Chinese companies, the USW, the largest manufacturing union in America, will use its long list of industry contacts to help construct an American supply chain essential to amass the approximately 8,000 components in a wind turbine. The idea is to collaboratively create a solid manufacturing, assembly, component sourcing, and distribution system so that this team – the Chinese companies, U.S. Renewable Energy Group and the USW -- will build many more wind farms after the first in Texas.

Additional wind farms mean more renewable energy freeing the U.S. from reliance on foreign oil. As U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, says, there’s no point in replacing imported foreign oil with imported wind turbines. For energy and economic independence, green manufacturing capacity and green jobs must be in the U.S.

This deal does that. And there’s nothing unusual about foreign companies employing Americans. Many Americans, including USW members, already work in factories owned by many different foreign national companies, including German, Russian, Japanese, Mexican, and Brazilian, with names like Bridgestone-Firestone, Arcelor-Mittal, Rio Tinto, Grupo Mexico, Svenska Cellulosa AB (SCA) and Severstal.

In at least one other case, action by the USW forced the hand of a Chinese company to move jobs to the U.S. Tianjin Pipe, the world’s largest manufacturer of steel pipe, said it could not export profitably to the United States if tariffs rose above 20 percent. This was after the USW and seven steel manufacturers filed a petition with U.S. trade agencies in April of 2009 accusing China of illegally dumping and subsidizing the type of pipe used in the oil and gas industry. The union won that case this past April, and the U.S. Commerce Department imposed import duties ranging from 30 to 100 percent to give the domestic industry relief from the unfair trade practices. To continue selling in the U.S., Tianjin Pipe had no choice but to build an American pipe mill. Construction is expected to begin in Texas this fall on the $1 billion plant to employ 600 by 2010.

Although the USW is cooperating with A-Power and Shenyang Power, it will not back off its trade cases involving exported Chinese steel, pipe, tires, paper and other manufactured products. The stakes for U.S. jobs are just too high.

Back in 1990, when green was not as trendy, the USW recognized that the environment would be among the most important issues of the era and issued the report, “Our Children’s World.” Since then, it has steadily promoted green -- became a founding member of the BlueGreen Alliance and Apollo Alliance, which promote renewable energy and renewable energy jobs.

Good, green American manufacturing jobs. Establishing American energy independence. It is win-win. And it’s getting a green light now.

Q&A with Veteran Labor Organizer Stewart J. Acuff

Leo Gerard — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 15:15:39 -0400

Leo W. Gerard: Stewart, you talk about power in a book you’ve written with economist Dr. Richard A. Levins. You called the manual, “Getting America Back to Work.” What’s the relationship between power and getting people back to work?

Stewart J. Acuff: A big part of the problem we have with this economy or the biggest problem is that most of the money has gone to the Financial Elite -- and the power as well. To get America back to work we have to reinvest in our country and our workers. That necessarily means that the Financial Elite get less of the wealth generated by the economy and workers will get more. If you intend to take wealth from the richest people in the history of the world, you have to have enough power to do so.

Gerard: You say in the introduction that there are two kinds of power: “The first is lots of organized money. That is the kind of power the Financial Elite have used to bring the rest of us to our knees. The other source and form of power is lots of people: organized, mobilized, united, and taking action.” Do you really think that organized people can succeed in a wrangle with the financial elites?

Acuff: Absolutely! The economic history of the twentieth century is crystal clear. When unions were strong, working people had the lion's share of income and the economy worked well. When unions were weakened, we have seen the Financial Elite take over and run the economy into the ground.

That’s why passing the Employees Free Choice Act is more important than ever. When we strengthen unions, we strengthen the economy.

Gerard: Now, Stewart, you sound like some kind of Socialist talking about the fact that at times in the nation’s history the financial elite received collectively as little as 9 percent of the total income earned by Americans but at other times – like right now and right before the Great Depression – the financial elite grabbed more than 23 percent of all income. I mean, aren’t you afraid the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck will accuse you of opposing just rewards earned by the barons of capitalism?

Acuff: Well, my friend, those aren’t just rewards. As my friend Jim Hightower said, members of the Financial Elite were born on third base and say they hit a triple. It’s beyond comprehension that the trading of phony financial instruments like derivatives produces rewards. What produces just rewards is manufacturing and producing goods and services that people need and want. The person who needs just rewards today is the hotel maid who cleans rooms for a living or the overstressed nurse who can’t get to all her patients or the skilled but out-of-work construction worker waiting for the chance to earn an honest day’s pay.

Gerard: Okay, but then you start talking about income tax rates. Are you really suggesting that the current maximum of 35 percent be raised to the 90 percent that it was during the 1950s? Would that not just enrage the financial elite?

Acuff: Yes, it would enrage the Financial Elite and Dr. Levins and I haven’t made that case in this book. Certainly the income tax rate for the richest among us is far too low. When Warren Buffet himself says he pays a lower percentage of his income in taxes than does his secretary, that’s a problem.

We wouldn't need to rely on taxes to redistribute income if we had the right mix of union power and corporate power. Instead of a few massive fortunes, we would have millions of working people being productive and using fair wages to stimulate economic growth.

Gerard: Since the days of Reagan, Republicans have told us that taxes on the financial elite should be cut because they need all that money to “re-invest” in the system. That way, the GOP line goes, wealth will trickle down on the “little people.” This hasn’t really worked, has it?

Acuff: No! Not at all! Since the days of Reagan workers wages have stagnated and declined while our productivity has increased. Wealth does not trickle down. Have you seen any of the TARP billions trickling into your pocket lately? I sure haven't. All I saw was obscene bonus payments to those who caused the mess in the first place.

Gerard: Halfway through the book, you suggest working people can have it all – family-supporting jobs, health insurance, even Social Security. Those on the radical right tell us daily that’s impossible because of the national debt. How can you justify such a vision?

Acuff: More income means more tax revenue, more economic growth and economic activity. We lift the economy from the bottom, not from the top.

Gerard: Then you have the audacity to quote some old economists claiming, “An efficient and humane society requires both halves of the mixed system – market and government.” We know, because the right-wing has told us repeatedly, that government is bad, that it should be shrunk and drowned in a bathtub. Where did you and Professor Levins come up with this new-fangled idea that government could help?

Acuff: It’s not a new idea. It says right in the ECON 101 text that Dr. Levins used in his classes that "markets without government is just one hand clapping." From the destruction of 2 trillion dollars of America’s wealth by Wall Street to the incessant pouring of oil from BP’s hole in the bottom of the Gulf, we know that capitalism must be regulated and constrained for the sake of everyone.

Gerard: Which brings us to organized labor. You quote President Kennedy saying, “Those who would destroy or further limit the rights of organized labor – those who would cripple collective bargaining or prevent organization – do a disservice to the cause of democracy.” Isn’t that exactly what has happened since the days of Kennedy, a slow destruction of the labor movement with corporations, union-busters and sometimes government regulators all working together to rob labor unions of the power they built between the 1930s and 1950s?

Acuff: Yes, you’re absolutely right. The results are the mal-distribution of wealth and power and massive recession, a shrinking middle class, a starved consumer demand, and a weaker America.

Gerard: The book was written and published before the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig that was drilling for BP in the Gulf of Mexico. Is it somewhat prophetic, then, that you discuss the need to move from a fossil fuel-based economy to one that creates jobs with renewable energy sources?

Acuff: I can’t speak to prophecy though I am a huge fan or both Isaiah and Jeremiah. We’ve long known that America needs to generate its own free energy from free resources like the wind that never stops blowing on Great Plains, the sun that never stops shining in the deserts of Arizona, and incessant pull of the ocean’s tide.

Gerard: I was glad to see the chapter discussing the importance of maintaining and supporting manufacturing in America. For those still unconvinced, why is that so important?

Acuff: Well, we don’t need to maintain just current manufacturing capacity. We need to increase manufacturing capacity. That is how to generate wealth. We create wealth by making things that other people want to buy and that is the best way to build a sound economy.

Gerard: You sound a little bit like a preacher at the end where you state the four values that Americans can believe in. Do you think America can organize around those values and take on the financial elite?

Acuff: Yes, I do! I think what we need is a reinforcement of fundamental human values. We’re all in this together; there is a common good; we are our sisters’ and brothers’ keepers, and workers win and have always won by exercising collective power against the individual power of the Financial Elite.

***

Stewart Acuff is chief of staff for the Utility Workers Union of America. He has organized for 30 years, beginning in 1982 with the SEIU. In 1990, he became president of the Atlanta AFL-CIO. There he led the campaign to organize the 1996 Olympics. A decade later, he went to work for the national AFL-CIO, serving as organizing director from 2001 to 2008. He led the AFL-CIO campaign to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

***

Dr. Richard Levins is professor emeritus of applied economics at the University of Minnesota. He is an award-winning author of books about policy and market power.

Green Jobs Are NOT A Myth!

Dave Johnson — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:57:30 -0500

Last week the Washington Post ran an op-ed with the curious headline, “The Green Jobs Myth.”

Oil and coal lobbyists everywhere, well-aware that most people only read headlines and a few paragraphs at most, were giving each other high-fives. You see, a headline like this “propels the propaganda” that anything remotely environmentally-conscious “costs jobs.” And being in the Washington Post, it signals that the “powers-that-be” are officially poo-pooing the concept.

The op-ed begins by setting up a straw man to knock down. It claims that the Obama administration has the “assumption that a "clean-energy" economy will generate enough jobs to mitigate today's high level of unemployment … and to meet the needs of future generations”, But seriously, has anyone, anywhere, ever said that new green jobs alone will solve the jobs crisis? Just asking.

The basis for the headline’s premise that green jobs are a myth was that installing smart electric meters means there will be fewer meter-readers employed. Well duh! But this op-ed -- with its curious headline -- uses some curious math to reach its conclusion that automating meters means fewer meter-readers will be employed. It claims that only 400 installation jobs would be created to install 20 million meters, 1600 if the rate of installation is increased. Huh? Then it gets better. To calculate how many meter-reader jobs will be lost it claims that meter-readers only read 30 meters an hour, causing 28,000 meter-reading jobs to be lost.

Now, I was already sold on the idea that automating meters means fewer meter-readers would be employed, but come on! Clearly the Post is betting that most people don't read past the first few paragraphs if they're thinking this kind of "let's play tricks with math" will just slip by.

Curiously, the op-ed doesn’t mention that people will be employed to manufacture these 20 million smart-meters! How many jobs will be created to manufacture 20 million smart meters? The op-ed doesn't say. perhaps saying how many would negate the curious title.

How Many Green Jobs Are There?

But never mind smart meters. If we’re going to talk about green jobs we need to talk about the jobs that would be created by:
- retrofitting every building and home in America to be energy efficient, and the management, supply chain, transportation, tools, etc.
- manufacturing, installing and maintaining wind turbines
- manufacturing, installing and maintaining rooftop solar installations
- manufacturing, installing and maintaining solar power generation facilities
- everything associated with biofuels, geothermal power generation, nuclear power, advanced batteries, hydro power, carbon sequestration, carbon credit trading and transportation alternatives including building an advanced high-speed rail system connecting every major city in the country.

Think about the huge number of jobs all of this involves – and the huge payoff to our economy. And remember, these will all be in addition to the existing energy infrastructure, for now.

I suspect that the reason we see curiously misleading op-eds like this one in outlets like the Washington Post is that all of these coming technologies mean lower profits for the big, monopolistic oil and coal giants.

They can try to stop the green manufacturing revolution but it is coming. The question is, do we let op-eds like this one stop it from being Made in America?

Responding To Climate Change By Speeding Job Creation

Natasha Chart — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:11:45 -0500

From Bloomberg, we learn how China is pushing an ambitious domestic clean economy agenda, planning large scale projects that will keep their citizens employed and civil unrest at bay.

A 20 gigawatt wind farm that will be the world's largest is scheduled for completion by 2020 and, as the Bloomberg article also notes, the country will also be building the world's largest solar installation and embarking on an enormous reforestation project. (They've either been paying attention to the latest research indicating that forests can attract their own rain, or they're just sick to the teeth of the dust storms. Either way, they're being proactive.) For a country that doesn't want to be tied to binding international targets, China's still doing a good job of jumping into the climate problem with both feet.

How could we get there?

First, we obviously have very different economic and social considerations. China has high labor flexibility because they're bringing a lot of people up from nothing and they've made a point of creating jobs for their majority of unskilled and semi-skilled workers, so they've developed a track record of delivering on employment promises. The US job market experience over the past three decades has largely been one of trading downwards in both job quality and availability, leaving an electorate that's sensibly distrustful of the elite's willingness to secure new opportunities for them. Being at different points in our cultural dialogue, the exact same solutions aren't going to work in both countries.

But what about the New Deal, or the Danish model? At the previous link, Meteor Blades of Daily Kos discusses the need for new approaches at the president's upcoming jobs summit and quotes Robert Kuttner, from his book, Obama's Challenges:

On the one hand, the Danes are passionate free traders. They score well in the ratings constructed by pro-market organizations. The World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index ranks Denmark third, just behind the United States and Switzerland, and even the far-right Heritage Foundation ranks Denmark eleventh, giving it demerits only for the size of its public sector. Denmark’s financial markets are clean and transparent, its barrier to imports minimal, its labor markets the most flexible in Europe, its multinational corporations dynamic and largely unmolested by industry policies, and its unemployment rate of 2.8 percent, the lowest in the OECD. [Now 4.1%, and the lowest in the OECD – MB.]

On the other hand, Denmark spends about 50 percent of its GDP socially and has the world’s second-highest tax rate after Sweden, as well as strong trade unions and one of the world’s most equal income distributions. For the half of the GDP that they pay in taxes, the Danes get not just universal health insurance but also generous child-care and family-leave arrangements, unemployment compensation that typically covers around 95 percent of lost wages, free higher education, secure pensions in old age, and the world’s most creative system of worker retraining.

What makes the flexicurity model both attractive to workers and dynamic for society are six key features: full employment; strong unions recognized as social partners; fairly equal wages among different sectors, so that a shift from manufacturing to service-sector work does not typically entail a pay cut; employer freedom to hire and fire as necessary; a comprehensive income floor; and a set of labor-market programs that spend an astonishing 4.5 percent of Danish GDP on programs such as transitional unemployment assistance, wage subsidies, and highly customized retraining. In return for such spending, the unions actively support both employer flexibility and a set of tough rules to weed out welfare chiselers; workers are understood to have duties as well as rights.

Danish workers don't have to be afraid of losing their jobs, or switching jobs, or of being abused by their employers. Denmark clearly has the labor market flexibility and high employment that the Chinese prioritize, but without any of that unpleasant social unrest. Everybody gets what they want, nobody gets left behind.

Why won't we do that? More, why won't we do that so our industrial sector can fearlessly retool to profit from the biggest challenge our species faces?

Climate change is now responsible for so many natural disasters that it's already a major humanitarian crisis. Coastal cities may be washed away, flooding and shifting rainfall threatens food security, and melting ice is already causing water shortages that are projected to get worse.

Solving each of these problems is a job opportunity for millions of people. Indeed, because of the persistent truth that it takes more effort to fix a problem than to avoid it, humans have created an enormous amount of work for ourselves.

All the reasons to move fast on transitioning to an efficient, clean, renewable energy economy are good ones. There's no labor shortage preventing the work from getting underway at once. Most of our international competitors are doing it and making loads of money at it. So again, what's the hold up?

Update: And if we needed one more reason to act urgently to create these new industries, Nouriel Roubini, one of the economists exiled to the hinterlands of polite opinion for the crime of being right, says that under business as usual, the jobs aren't coming back for years. That's a major problem for political incumbents anywhere in the world.

I'm no brilliant, 11th dimensional chess player, but it seems to me that unless Democrats want to fall prey to a 'throw the bums out' sentiment in the next election, they'd better get moving on job creation with a powerful quickness.

Making It In America: Building The New Economy

Eric Lotke — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:06:30 -0400

Key progressive leaders participating in the October 29, 2009 "Building the New Economy" conference in Washington address the issues raised in this report and discuss what it will take to ensure that the new economy that emerges from the wreckage of the old will provide Americans with good jobs.

Download and read the full report »

Executive Summary

We can’t pull out of the present downturn and return to the economy of the past—a high-consumption, low-wage economy based on asset bubbles and foreign borrowing. We need to look ahead. Our response to the current crisis must plant the seeds for the economy of the future.

The contours of the new economy are starting to take shape. Barack Obama set a different tone with an inaugural address that promised a “new foundation for growth.” Some of this is happening already: Construction crews are fixing bridges, filling potholes and laying new airport runways; work has started to improve our nation’s electric grid and create new, renewable sources of energy, and Congress is working on the biggest boon for college student financial aid in a generation, shifting $87 billion in subsidies from banks to students over the next decade.

Outside of government, we hear talk of sustainability, about returning to a real economy based on production, not consumption, and manufacturing, not finance. Celebration over cheap Chinese imports is giving way to alarm over the loss of jobs, currency manipulation, low environmental standards and dangerous workplaces that lower Chinese costs and give Chinese imports an unfair advantage.

But the opposition to reform is fierce. Wall Street is mobilizing against financial reform and regulation. Obama’s decision to impose tariffs on Chinese tires was called “economic vandalism," and modest “buy American” provisions in the Recovery Act met accusations ranging from “counterproductive” (U.S. Chamber of Commerce) to “the worst instincts of Congress” (The Wall Street Journal). And federal budget deficits generate concern across the political spectrum.

The next economy must be built on a solid platform. We need to rebuild our infrastructure, renew our manufacturing base and educate our people. America needs an industrial policy to help fit these pieces together. From workforce development to component manufacture, we need a strategic collaboration between the private sector and the government to reach our shared national goals. We need an opportunity for stakeholders to come together to remove obstacles, allocate resources, and create rules that work for everyone involved.

This report makes the case for that policy and explains what should be the key elements.

The Missing Link In Clean-Energy Policy

Andrea Buffa — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:15:41 -0400

There was a certain irony in the U.S. decision to hold the recent G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh to show off the former steel town’s success at creating green jobs. Pittsburgh transformed itself from a polluted and declining industrial metropolis into a clean and booming green one by crafting deliberate economic development policies to support the growth of clean-energy industries. The irony is that the United States—unlike most other G-20 members—still needs a comprehensive national clean-energy economic development policy.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act could be considered a step toward a national economic development policy to promote a clean-energy economy. But the Recovery Act was merely a short-term approach designed to lift the U.S. economy out of recession.

What would it look like if the U.S. had a long-term national economic development policy to grow the clean-energy economy?

Most proposals for a national clean-energy economic development policy start with the need for federal policies that increase demand for clean energy. These might include putting a price on carbon (through a carbon tax or “cap and trade” program), adopting a national renewable energy standard, implementing national building and appliance energy efficiency standards, or encouraging small-scale renewable energy projects through a national feed-in tariff.

National energy policies should not only send a strong signal that the U.S. economy is set to embrace cleaner technologies; they should also be long term. Brian Sager, co-founder of Nanosolar, a solar power technology company, believes current U.S. clean-energy policies have created a difficult environment for businesses: “One thing we’ve been lacking in the U.S. is stable policy. In Germany, feed-in tariffs have been very stable. In the U.S. there is a lack of harmony from year to year, so there’s inherently a higher level of risk. The warranty for a solar panel is 25 years; that’s the kind of time-frame we’re talking about.”

Many experts believe the federal government should offer incentives to persuade clean-energy companies to set up facilities in the United States, a practice that is commonplace in other parts of the world. “Many countries offer financial investment incentives … but in the U.S., we don’t,” said Clyde Prestowitz, president of the Economic Strategy Institute and a former Reagan administration trade and investment counselor. “The issue of investment incentives is very important. I think we should try to negotiate some international discipline on investment subsidies (as we’ve already done on trade subsidies). I also think we should have a war chest and use our war chest to match the incentives that are being offered by others to move their production facilities elsewhere in the world.”

Another policy often described as essential to a clean-energy economic development policy designed to support a domestic clean-energy manufacturing industry is a local content requirement. Without such a requirement—also called a “Buy American” policy—most clean-energy manufacturing companies will likely locate overseas.

“First and foremost, we actually have to put a serious buy-American/domestic-content policy in place,” said Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO’s Industrial Union Council. “It matters where you make things. In the case of wind turbines and solar, 70 to 80 percent of the cost itself is in the product, not the installation. That means you have to have a strategy and a policy that says you’ll do it here.”

Leo Hindery, chair of the Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation, also emphasizes the need for a buy American policy, but argues that it could begin with federal government purchases: “We need a buy-American policy that mirrors China’s,” Hindery said. “We have a GDP in this country of about $14 billion. Twenty percent of that comes from federal purchases. We should simply say that the federal government will buy domestically produced goods and services if they’re available. If they’re not available, then you’re allowed to buy them overseas.”

Other policy recommendations to promote clean-energy domestic manufacturing include programs to help U.S. manufacturers become more productive—and thus competitive, and programs to help reconcile supply chain challenges. Susan Helper, an economics professor at Case Western Reserve University, argues that Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers should be given additional funds to help small and medium-sized manufacturers become more productive. Helper cites a 1999 study by Roland Jarmin showing that productivity at firms that received assistance from a partnership center center rose in the range of 3.4 percent to 16 percent more between 1987 and 1992 than productivity at firms that received no assistance.

As Congress debates comprehensive clean-energy and climate legislation, and the issue of green jobs becomes increasingly important, perhaps it’s time for a comprehensive U.S. economic development policy to promote the clean-energy economy. From lithium-ion battery producers to wind turbine component manufacturers, the industries of the clean-energy future need clear direction—and support—from the U.S. government if they are going to be able to compete and thrive in a low-carbon global economy.

This blog post is an excerpt from a longer article, which can be found on the Apollo Alliance website.

Andrea Buffa is a senior writer and policy associate at the Apollo Alliance.

Saving Green Manufacturing Through Fair Trade

Alex Hogan — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:45:52 -0400

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers President Edwin D. Hill comments on the recent announcement by General Electrical Co. that it was closing one of its last incandescent bulb plants in the United States and what it means for the future of domestic “green” energy manufacturing.

Via the Huffington Post:

General Electric Co. announced on July 23 that it was shutting down its Kentucky Glass Plant in July 2010, the last G.E. plant in the United States to make glass covering, known as envelopes, for household incandescent bulbs. Incandescent bulbs - first invented by Thomas Edison more than 100 years ago - are becoming obsolete thanks to new energy regulations which encourage the use of more energy efficient fluorescent bulbs, known as CFLs, the vast majority of which are made in China.

Plant employees, members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, knew that the clock was ticking on their jobs unless they could convince G.E. to retool the facility to make CFLs domestically. They even agreed to a voluntary wage freeze and eased restrictions on overtime in the hope that G.E. would prolong the facility's lifespan.

For Hill, unfair and unbalanced trade laws and the lack of enough domestic incentives to develop new energy-efficient manufacturing in the United States put workers and businesses in danger of losing out in the global race to become a leader in green technology.

The development of a new line of green bulbs could have been an opportunity to revitalize electrical manufacturing in North America, but the lack of any kind of substantial federal inducement to build green products at home, in addition to existing trade laws stacked against domestic production, means the great job drain of the last 20 years continues unabated.

The across-the-board decline of manufacturing is harming our emerging green energy sector as much as it has hurt older sectors like steel and auto … According to the

Apollo Alliance, more than 70 percent of America's clean energy systems and components are produced abroad, while fully half of America's existing wind turbines are manufactured overseas.

While bills like Sen. Sherrod Brown’s IMPACT Act are steps in the right direction, much more has to be done.

When G.E. began producing the incandescent bulb more than 100 years ago, it kicked off an industrial revolution that ended up putting thousands of residents of the United States and Canada to work at decent, well-paying jobs.

If we want to make sure our current energy revolution does the same, our political leaders need to make a comprehensive commitment to develop a balanced framework for global trade that will rebuild our economy, reduce the planet's carbon footprint and help keeping working men and women on the job.

To read the whole article, click here.

Alex Hogan

Alex Hogan — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:39:46 -0400

Shifting from Defense to Green Jobs is Easy

Armand Biroonak — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:01:51 -0400

As progressives call for cuts to defense spending, a big challenge in doing so is addressing job losses that come with eliminating weapons programs. The number of jobs at stake can often be a powerful argument for defense supporters that cannot be ignored. The recent fight over the F-22 and its production in over 40 states is a clear example. But there is a remedy. By shifting defense jobs to the green energy sector, we can both save jobs and address climate change –and it is easier than we think.

To be sure, a sizeable number of jobs are at stake with a cut to defense programs. Case in point is the F-22. Although the numbers may be disputed, the jet’s production involves anywhere between 35,000 and 90,000 total jobs.

However, the majority of jobs in defense production are not actually defense specific. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, “Of all aerospace workers, 40 percent are employed in production; installation, maintenance, and repair; and transportation and material-moving occupations. Many of these jobs are not specific to aerospace and can be found in other manufacturing industries.” Also, other related production occupations include: rigging, systems assemblers, machinists, tool and die makers, inspectors, and sorters.

Compare defense manufacturing jobs to employment at a typical wind turbine company – they match up closely:

Source: Management Information Services, Inc., 2009.

Thus, the value of defense workers is not what they produce, but their skills in production.

Evidence of defense companies making the switch to green technology is occurring. For example, defense powerhouse Lockheed Martin has been moving forward with the research and production of solar and wave energy. In fact, by 2013 Lockheed will open the world’s largest solar energy plant in Arizona. And giant BAE Systems announced this year they will begin development of offshore deepwater wind technology.

So how can this transition occur?

Firstly, the federal government has the ability to redirect and prioritize investments. In 2008 alone, the top 100 defense contractors were paid over $315 billion for their products. With a shift in some of that funding to greater subsidies for green energy companies, boosting public investment and purchasing of green technology, we can speed up the transition to renewable energy.

Secondly, cooperation between government and the private sector can ensure that workers are not left out in the shift. From worker retraining programs both in-house and the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration, reorientation of skills can be smooth. Moreover, federal programs to assist affected companies in the switch –similar to those after World War II –should be in place as well.

Overall, this is a win-win strategy. No longer investing in failed, unnecessary weaponry, retaining jobs and making critical investments in green energy, the U.S. again can be on the right track. And considering how military experts agree that climate change is the biggest national security threat, this shift can become a key component to a new 21st century defense policy.