Congressman Sander Levin

Making Sure America Leads the Green Jobs Revolution

A global revolution has begun in the area of green industries. Due to rapidly rising prices for traditional fossil fuels as well as a growing awareness of the environmental costs of our reliance on polluting sources of energy, it’s becoming increasingly clear that green technologies are the next big thing.

As the U.S. did decades ago with the development of the first personal computers and the Internet, it is vital that our country make the investments now that will allow us to create jobs in the emerging industries of renewable energy, super-efficient appliances, green buildings, and advanced automobiles, to name only a few. It is estimated that these industries will create three million new jobs over the next ten years. The only question is whether those jobs will be created here or someplace else.

In December 2007, the Green Jobs Act was signed into law as part of a broad, far-reaching energy package [H.R. 6]. In so doing, Congress recognized the importance of creating green collar jobs here at home by authorizing up to $125 million a year to establish training programs to help address job shortages that are impairing growth in green industries. A 2006 study from the National Renewable Energy Lab identified the shortage of skills and training as a leading non-technical barrier to renewable energy and energy efficiency growth in the United States.

I strongly supported passage of the Green Jobs Act, but now the challenge for Congress is to come up with the actual funding for the job training partnerships between community colleges, labor groups, private industry, and other organizations. Earlier this year, I joined more than 70 of my House colleagues in writing to the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee to seek full funding for this important new initiative.