Labor & Employment Law

USW Members Urge Action on Clean Energy Jobs Bills

By James Parks

As the U.S. Senate prepares to consider clean energy legislation, hundreds of United Steelworkers (USW) members are visiting Capitol Hill today to urge lawmakers to pass strong legislation that includes the investments needed to create and maintain good, middle-class manufacturing jobs in this country.

At a Capitol Hill press conference this morning, USW members announced that union members sent more than 100,000 letters to Congress calling for comprehensive manufacturing policies that promote clean energy innovation and development. Dennis Barker, a USW member from Granite City, Ill., said:

Now is the time for the Senate to get moving on clean energy jobs legislation.

Wilmer Bradley, a USW member from Collierville, Tenn., told reporters:

We have an opportunity to make America a leader in building the components for the emerging clean energy economy, but we can only do that if we make the necessary investments in manufacturing that will ensure that clean energy technologies are built here at home, creating and maintaining jobs in every community in America.

USW Secretary-Treasurer Stan Johnson said that the right kind of clean energy legislation would reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, reduce carbon emissions and establish the nation as a global leader in the production of clean energy technologies and component parts.

Solar panels, energy-efficient windows and numerous other clean energy products use glass, aluminum, steel, paper products and other materials. We already have the domestic capability to produce everything here in the United States.

In their meetings with legislators, the USW members are pushing for passage of  S. 1617, the Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology (IMPACT) Act. Sponsored by Sen. Sherrod Brown  (D-Ohio), the bill would create a $30 billion state-level revolving loan fund to help small- and medium-sized manufacturers retool for clean energy markets and adopt energy efficient manufacturing;

They also will promote a package of comprehensive, economy-wide bills backed by their union and the AFL-CIO. This legislation would:

•  Place a price on carbon emissions to ensure that domestic industries and manufacturing workers can compete in the global economy with countries that do not have the same environmental standards as the United States. It would provide assistance to domestic companies moving to clean energy production and include rules to add tariffs to goods imported from countries with weak environmental standards.
• Extend and strengthen the Advanced Energy Manufacturing tax credit for investments in manufacturing facilities for clean energy technologies.
• Create a  federal renewable electricity standard requiring that 25 percent of energy produced in the country be from renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal  by 2025. That would increase demand and develop a long-term, stable market for clean energy products;

David Foster, executive director of the Blue Green Alliance, a coalition of unions and environmental groups, summed up the message to lawmakers this way:

The United States is poised to be a global leader in the production of clean energy technologies, but only if we act now and only if we implement policies that build clean energy manufacturing.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on July 20, 2010 (boomark / email).