by Lisa P. Jackson

This entry was cross-posted from Huffington Post. Read the original post here.

With the economy on the minds of millions of Americans, President Obama continues to make job creation this administration’s top priority. Today the U.S Environmental Protection Agency is following through on that priority by supporting the creation of good, green jobs for Americans across the country.

The EPA is awarding more than $6.2 million in workforce development and job training grants to 21 communities nationwide. Organizations receiving grant support — ranging from a state environmental agency to community-based groups — will use it to train job-seekers, giving them the tools they need to manage, assess and clean up contaminated properties known as brownfields. In addition to providing marketable skills, part of the grant funding will help place those newly trained workers into available employment — creating a straight line between our investment and new jobs.

The environmental, health and economic benefits of brownfields cleanups are extensive and long-lasting. Brownfields sites are places like old gas stations, closed smelters and other industrial and commercial properties that have been left too contaminated to be safely redeveloped. The training programs supported by today’s grants will help graduates revitalize these sites with skills like solid waste management, underground storage tank removal, green construction and clean energy installation.

But this is about more than just creating jobs for one or two cleanup projects. The workers trained under these grants will be strengthening the conditions needed for healthy, sustainable job growth in their own communities. Rather than sitting idle and posing threats to the health of local residents, the revitalized sites can be safely transformed into parks or new economic developments. Since its inception, the brownfields program has sparked the transformation of once-abandoned and contaminated lands into business centers, recreational areas and other developments. That renewal sparks job creation, economic growth and healthier, stronger communities to raise a family and start a business.

The public and private partnerships fostered through the brownfields program have helped create more than 70,000 new jobs. And, as of June 1, 2011, the brownfields job training program alone has trained and placed almost 5,400 people in full-time, sustainable jobs.

Under President Obama’s leadership, we will continue to push for good, green jobs in communities across the nation. It makes perfect sense to seize the abundant opportunities to put people to work protecting the air we breathe, the water we drink and the lands where we build our communities. We can get the important economic benefits of new jobs, while we help make our communities better places to raise a family free from health risks, or to start a business knowing that problems in the environment aren’t going to turn away customers or make workers call in sick.

In other words, we can show that we don’t have to choose between breathing clean air and drinking clean water or creating good jobs. We can do them all at the same time.

Yesterday Administrator Jackson announced the finalization of EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, also called C-SAP. The updated standard will cut millions of tons of smokestack pollution that travels across state lines and into the communities that 240 million Americans call home.

Carried long distances across the country by wind and weather, power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) regularly travel across state lines. As the pollution is transported, it reacts in the atmosphere and contributes to harmful levels of smog and soot, which science has linked to widespread illnesses and premature deaths. By reducing cross-state air pollution, EPA expects to prevent up to 34,000 premature deaths, 15,000 nonfatal heart attacks, 19,000 cases of acute bronchitis, and 400,000 cases of aggravated asthma.

“No community should have to bear the burden of another community’s polluters, or be powerless to prevent air pollution that leads to asthma, heart attacks and other harmful illnesses. These Clean Air Act safeguards will help protect the health of millions of Americans and save lives by preventing smog and soot pollution from traveling hundreds of miles and contaminating the air they breathe,” said Administrator Jackson.

Read Administrator Jackson’s remarks on the C-SAP Rule.

The protections in the C-SAP rule are expected to provide up to $280 billion in annual health benefits – far outweighing the yearly cost of complying with the rule, estimated at about $800 million in 2014, along with $1.6 billion per year in capital investments already underway as a result of CAIR – the court-overturned rule C-SAP is designed to replace.

In good news for American businesses, those health benefits will mean 1.8 million fewer sick days for American workers and students.

Under C-SAP, states will work with power plants to employ widely available pollution control technology – which is already in place on many power plants. By 2014, the rule and other state and EPA actions will reduce SO2 emissions by 73 percent from 2005 levels. NOx emissions will drop by 54 percent. States will have the power to decide how best to reduce pollution in the most cost effective ways, not only helping its neighbors, but better protecting its own residents as well.

Get real time air quality information for your community.

Making these changes will provide more than just health and environmental benefits – the rule will also help improve visibility in state and national parks while better protecting sensitive ecosystems, including Appalachian streams, Adirondack lakes, estuaries, coastal waters, and forests.

Ultimately, these safeguards are about securing every American’s fundamental right to breathe clean air and raise a family in places free of threats to their health and well-being. With this rule in place, EPA is ensuring that future generations will have access to clean air and all the benefits that come along with healthy, vibrant communities.

Protecting and preserving America’s water supply is a top priority for the EPA because it is a top priority for the American people. That is clear not just in the concerns homeowners and community members express to the EPA and elected officials, but also through the products they buy and the decisions they make as consumers.

That’s why the EPA is working to give consumers options to save water and save money through our WaterSense program. For five years, EPA has applied the WaterSense labels to innovative products – faucets, showerheads, toilets and more – that cut water consumption while performing as well or better than standard products.   

Last year a leading faucet manufacturer, Moen, was recognized as EPA’s WaterSense Partner of the Year. I recently visited the Moen Design Reliability Lab in North Olmstead, Ohio. I had a chance to tour the facility, where American workers are developing and testing products that help American families and businesses save money and preserve water. Moen’s entire product line has earned the WaterSense label; today they produce nine times as many WaterSense products as they did just three years ago. And because of the wide variety of WaterSense items they offer, Moen products are available to consumers at every price point. Just as important, Moen doesn’t just talk about water efficiency; the reuse 70 percent of the water needed for product testing.   

For Moen, this is about more than just doing the right thing for our environment. These days, informed consumers are demanding more of their products, making up a grassroots environmental movement that votes with its dollars. Seven in 10 consumers say they will choose brands that are doing good things for people and the planet, while 74 percent believe that our companies should do more to protect our planet. More than half of Americans say they will look for environmentally friendly products in their next purchase. By responding to consumer demand, companies like Moen can earn new customers, helping them grow and create new jobs and new environmental innovations.

Since the WaterSense program started five years ago, more than 2,300 partners have signed on. Today, about 53 million products have earned the WaterSense label, and the program has helped consumers save 125 billion gallons of water. That adds up to more than $2 billion in savings on Americans’ water and energy bills, and cuts of about 6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in our skies.

 The WaterSense program helps expand EPA’s efforts to protect and preserve water beyond just enforcing environmental laws. It helps us to tap the forces of the consumer marketplace and the innovative capacity of American companies. The end result is a situation where we are using less water, where we are saving consumers money and where we are creating economic opportunities for companies like Moen and the people they employ.  

By Lisa Jackson, Shaun Donovan, and Ray LaHood

Two years ago, President Obama offered a new vision for sustainable communities and vastly improved how our agencies work together.  He challenged us to coordinate our efforts and help build communities where housing, public transportation, jobs, and services are conveniently connected, where businesses thrive, and where the air, water and land are clean.

That is the goal of the HUD-DOT-EPA Partnership for Sustainable Communities.  And since June 2009, we have worked to help improve access to affordable housing, provide more transportation options at lower costs, and protect the environment in communities across the nation.

Americans have made it clear they want their communities back–back from the neglected brownfields of earlier decades, back from traffic congestion and sprawl, and back from housing choices that exclude most families.

In places like Ranson, West Virginia, and Boston, Massachusetts, residents are already benefiting from our Partnership’s coordinated efforts to help revitalize neighborhoods and reposition them for a more sustainable future.

In Ranson, the Partnership aligned planning grants and assistance from our three agencies to integrate affordable housing, economic development, and transportation to build a livable community. An EPA Brownfields Area-Wide Planning Grant will help Ranson prioritize cleanup of contaminated lots and develop reuse plans based on community input while EPA’s Sustainable Communities Building Blocks assistance will help the city ensure that its development codes promote the kind of growth residents want. Using a DOT TIGER II Planning Grant, Ranson will create a Complete Street plan for the important Fairfax Boulevard / George Street corridor. This will ensure easy and safe downtown access for pedestrians and bicyclists as well as motorized vehicles. And a HUD Challenge Planning Grant will help Ranson develop a smart building code that encourages more compact, walkable development patterns.

Coordinating these grants and assistance will help Ranson create more affordable housing and transportation choices for its residents–saving them money, protecting their air and water, and encouraging long-term economic growth.

The Fairmount Corridor in Boston connects several low-income neighborhoods that rely heavily on public transit. Although a rail line runs along the corridor, it largely bypasses these areas. Boston municipal agencies and regional community groups have been working with the Partnership agencies to improve access to the Fairmount Corridor and open up more economic, environmental and recreational opportunities for neighborhood residents. DOT support is helping upgrade infrastructure, refurbish two transit stations, and build four more. HUD is helping build new affordable homes near these stations. And EPA is helping clean up nearby brownfield sites and prepare station areas for redevelopment. When this work is complete, residents will enjoy more accessible rail service between Boston and the surrounding region, greater prospects for economic development around local stations, new affordable housing choices and more opportunities to improve their lives and the lives of their families.

From Portland, Oregon, to Portland, Maine, DOT, EPA, and HUD have worked closely together to support innovative ideas from communities that help meet their housing, transportation, economic, and environmental challenges head-on. When we back local innovation with coordinated, targeted investments, the economic ripple effect creates jobs, supports business development, and helps keep America on track toward economic recovery and long-term prosperity.

As the President said last October, “We’re working to change the way government works, and that means investing tax dollars wisely and well.”

For more information about the Partnership for Sustainable Communities, please visit www.sustainablecommunities.gov.