Tonight President Obama laid out a comprehensive plan for getting more Americans back on the job. Unlike Republican leaders in Congress, the president did not try to use the economic crisis as an excuse to destroy bedrock environmental safeguards or to continue to subsidize big oil companies.
Instead, he recognizes that we can put Americans back to work and protect our health at the same time. The president said:
I reject the idea that we need to ask people to choose between their jobs and their safety. I reject the argument that says for the economy to grow, we have to roll back protections that ban hidden fees by credit card companies, or rules that keep our kids from being exposed to mercury… We shouldn't be in a race to the bottom, where we try to offer the cheapest labor and the worst pollution standards. America should be in a race to the top.
The president also highlighted two potent opportunities for creating jobs: smart infrastructure and clean technologies like fuel-efficient cars. By investing in these building blocks of 21st century competitiveness and growth, we can put Americans to work today and create a more prosperous future.
Obama is wise to single out innovation as an effective job creator. Neither renewable power nor advanced vehicles were widely available 10 years ago. Now, thanks to technological leaps, the clean energy industry grew nearly twice as fast as the overall economy between 2003 and 2010. Now almost 90,000 Americans make their living building wind turbines, and more than 150,000 Americans have jobs assembling clean cars such as hybrids.
Green jobs were woven throughout the president's plan. The men and women who will build the public transit systems that Obama called for -- things like bus rapid transit routes, hybrid buses, and fast trains -- will be performing work that benefits the environment and the economy at the same time.
I find it encouraging that President Obama presented a real jobs plan. The GOP leadership has offered nothing but a pollution plan: The so-called jobs memo released by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor last week centered on a list of environmental safeguards the party wants to abolish. That agenda will create dirtier skies, but it won't put Americans back to work.
President Obama in contrast has called for state-of-the-art infrastructure that will actually employ people. The White House understands that some projects create more jobs than others. Data from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act confirms that investing in public transportation produced twice as many jobs as investing in highways and roads.
Several of proposals Obama mentioned tonight will be especially effective at unleashing private investment, which is what leads to job growth. The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, for instance, already has a track record of leveraging limited public funding to draw private dollars off the sidelines and back into the economy -- yielding 10 or more times as much investment per taxpayer dollar.
Expanding that program and launching a similarly effective National Infrastructure Bank will attract even more private investment. And if federal grants include performance-based standards for things like reducing oil use, saving commuters money, and cleaning up the air, then these projects -- and the jobs they create -- will generate long-lasting benefits for the nation.
Tonight the president called on us to imagine if previous generations had failed to invest in the railroads and highways that connected our nation or the research institutions that gave us the Internet and other technological breakthroughs.
Making America stronger and more competitive should not be a partisan issue: it is shared effort of Republicans and Democrats alike. Our leaders must put aside their political battles in the interest of putting Americans to work.
By promoting clean energy innovation and by modernizing our nation's infrastructure, we can put Americans to work now and create prosperity for years to come.
This article originally appeared on the NRDC's Switchboard Blog, and is reprinted with permission.
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Looks like most people
Looks like most people disagree here with Obama as I did earlier in his post.
Just a new real world happening; right now everyone loves ethanol as a gasoline additive to some claim reduce carbon dioxide other say of of middle east oil and reduce global warming.
Ethanol is carbon dioxide in gasoline form except with added water and when burned created ozone when burned the major cause of global warming.
Ozone from oxidation is oxygen attacking everything on earth.
All of the potential green
All of the potential green jobs won't make a significant dent in the underemployent of current adults let alone the generation to come. We know how to transport people. We need to keep foreign goods out that are subsidized by state capitlism abroad. We need to build cars and trucks in the US and produce the oil and gas to fuel them in this nation. Industry inevitably causes pollution, including green But US industry is very clean compared with Chinese industry. We won't have clean skies with what the NRDC and the parasitic green lobby call green jobs and industry.
We need inexpensive energy and green energy is not inexpensive under any realistic scenario. Mr Obama lacked any private sector experience prior to his bolt from heaven election the the US Senate or his undistinguished service as a state senator. His ignorance of the real world appears in every speech and proposal he makes.
GREEN MEANS HIGHER COST
GREEN MEANS HIGHER COST THINK HEAT SINK
TODAY WE ARE TRYING TO DUPLICATE CHLOROPHYLL FOR ALTERNATIVE ENERGY DESIGNED BY GOD; HUMANS CAN NOT COPY OR DUPLICATE GOD'S SYSTEM SO HERE ARE SOME MYTHS
MERCURY IN COAL PLANTS EXHAUST VS MERCURY IN CFL LIGHT BULBS DOUBLE STANDARD; ONE IS A GAS AND ONE IS AN OXIDE.
THE BIG MYTH TO THE EPA IS CARBON FOOT PRINT WHICH DOES NOT EXIST;
IN NATURE IT IS THERMANAL ENERGY HOT-COLD CLOUD TOPS LIGHT SPECTRUM MEASURMENT
THE CONFUSION STARTED WITH AL GORE AND HIS ATTACK ON OIL AND CARBON ALONG WIITH THE CONFUSION IF EARTH'S ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEM DESIGNED BY GOD.
WE USE OXYGNE AS A WELDING GAS TO BURN CARBON RODS AND WE USE CARBON AS A FILTER
EARTH IS A HUGE HEAT SINK AND MAN DESTROYED EARTH'S ORIGINAL HEAT SINK WITH NEW HEAT SINKS WHICH INCREASE LOW LEVEL OXONZE FROM VOC'S OXIDES; OXIDATION .
THE KEY ELEMENT IS OXYGEN WHICH BURNS AND ATTACKS ALL OTHER ELEMENTS.
WE USE OXYGNE AS A WELDING GAS TO BURN CARBON RODS AND WE USE CARBON AS A FILTER
BOTH NASA AND CERN HAS IDENTIFIED THE SUN AND SOLAR RADIATION AS A CULPRIT OF GLOBAL WARMING
OZONE HAS EMERGED AT THE MAJOR CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING; NOT CARBON DIOXIDE.
OZONE is formed by oxides ( and yes carbon is one of numerous) formed in WATER VAPOR.
Ozone is one of the GHG as classified by the UN’s IPCC.
The carbon foot print is actually the light spectrum of energy imaging. heat-cold
(Remember not all energy is produced from dirty carbon and why do we use carbon as a filter and carbon is the building block of the earth as designed by God.
There are over 6000 plus carbon by products in use today in all heat sinks on earth today.
If one follows oxides-oxidation the culprit is oxygen which attacks everything on earth and adds water vapor through expansion and contraction (heat-cool)
We use oxygen with other gases including carbon in welding; because oxygen burns.
In 1985 the EPA identified ozone as the major source of in door air quality and the over thousands of gases called VOC’s that must be exhausted to the outside air; called energy foot print.
God has design a system that works and we continue to misuse and even claim green energy when it does not exist.
The earth is a huge heat sink designed by God.
Wind and solar are free part time inefficient energy (light spectrum of sun light) and requires expensive equipment to process the energy which add heat sinks to the earth's heat sink and all use carbon by products and also add oxides to water vapor and increase ozone levels.
Energy from sun light (light spectrum) is not uniform and subject to seasonal variations; only 6 months of quality light 20 degrees above the equator.
Wind is caused by the heat-cooling cycle of the earth.
Solar power cells can be destroyed by one solar flare
The equipment used to harness and store energy production from the sun and wind is not new; so retraining is not required; but on the job training is required for the playstation-xbox-twitter-texting generation.
Hybrid lithium battery storage; questions on battery life in non protective heat- humid climate; simialr as todays acid battery. Lithium and oxygen do not mix well. Carbon casing in aluminum frame not new technology.
Battery storage and controls for multi alternative energy buildings needs to be housed in climate controlled rooms due to additional heat sink concerns.
Jesus Christ talks about recycle everything we use which would cut energy consumption by 50% and we would become self sufficient and finally get ride of the internal combustion engine and replace with diesel engine.
THE DUAL GOVERNMENT SYSTEMS OSHA AND EPA
ONLY ON THE JOB TRAINING IS REQUIRED TO RUN THE ENERGY PRODUCTION EQUIPMENT TODAY AND TOMMORROW.
Robbing more money from the
Robbing more money from the social security system so that even less taxes can be paid by the unproductive isn't my idea of JOBS plan. Sounds more like the same tired social engineering we've been doing since 1940. Small business's create most of the jobs where are the incentives for more small business's? Oh, yeah business is evil and only liberal redistribution of the wealth works for Obama and his regressive cronies.
Frances, I agree with
Frances,
I agree with everything in your post regarding clean tech and the green aspects of public transportation infrastructure projects, and encouraged that these were emphasized in the President's speech. I alos agree that the GOP approach of removing many environmental regulations would be a disaster.
But I'm confused on one thing: when I heard the President say in the speech that (paraphrasing) he rejects the idea that we need to roll back environmental protections to make economic progress, I thought "Does he think we can't remember as far back as last week?" His administration has recently done just that, in agreeing to roll back EPA smog regulations in the name of not hurting the economy. And this came very shortly after his administration gave tentative approval to the XL tar sands pipeline, which would keep us addicted to oil and encourage the pursuit of the dirtiest type of oil there is.
I'm also somewhat confused by your support of that particular statement in his speech. The NRDC was one of the leading organizations in attempting to hold the President and the administration accountable for these recent poor decisions, gathering scores of thousands of signatures (including mine) on petitions to the administration to reverse these recent poor decisions. Did something change in the past two weeks that I haven't seesn? If not, I'm surprised at the NRDC's support of this specific statement by the President.
I support the modest positive steps that the administration has done and says it wants to do, but in light of the actions of recent weeks, the President and the administration need to know that voters who care about the environment will hold them accountable for their actions, and will not just be satisfied with mere words.