09 Sep Report: Thousands of jobs would be created by $100 billion investment in clean energy
Milwaukee, Wis. – The United States can create two million new jobs nationwide, including 37,000 in Wisconsin, by investing in clean energy technologies that fight global warming.
That’s according to a new report released today by the Blue Green Alliance, an collaboration between the United Steelworkers and Sierra Club. The report asserts that investing in clean energy would create four times as many jobs as spending the same amount of money within the oil industry.
The report, titled “Green Recovery – A Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy,” analyzes the potential for a two-year, $100 billion “green investment” program that includes $50 billion in tax credits, $46 billion in direct government spending, and $4 billion in loan guarantees.
“This new report shows that investing in clean energy is a win-win solution,” said Rosemary Wehnes, an associate Midwest representative for the Sierra Club, in a statement released with the report. “Shifting to clean energy will put more people to work and revitalize our economy at a time when many Americans are hurting.”
According to the Blue Green Alliance, the investment program could be paid for with proceeds from auctions of carbon permits under a global warming “cap-and-trade” program designed to drive private investments into clean energy and raise revenue through carbon permit auctions.
In addition, the alliance said the package would create nearly four times more jobs than spending the same amount of money within the oil industry, and bolster employment in construction and manufacturing.
The report was written by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, under commission by the Center for American Progress. It was authored by Robert Pollin, Heidi Garrett-Peltier, James Heintz, and Helen Scharber of PERI.