Blue Green Alliance: House Committee Takes A First Step Toward A Clean Energy Bill

by James Parks, Apr 1, 2009

A week after issuing its own principles for climate change legislation, the Blue Green Alliance said the draft bill released yesterday by the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce takes the first step toward building a strong clean energy economy.

Last week, the alliance, a national partnership of four unions and two environmental organizations, outlined its goals for climate change legislation that would rapidly put millions of Americans back to work building a clean energy economy and to reduce global warming emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

In a statement, David Foster, the alliance’s executive director, says climate change legislation must: 

ensure international competitiveness and a sound transition to a green economy creating millions of jobs building the clean energy economy in the United States, while taking the necessary steps to avoid the worst effects of climate change and moving America toward energy independence.

The alliance called for a reduction of U.S. carbon emissions by at least 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050 and is supporting a renewed U.S. effort to forge a global treaty to reduce worldwide emissions by 50 percent by that same year. To meet these goals, domestic climate change legislation should reduce U.S. emissions significantly below 2005 levels by 2020, with individual partners advocating targets ranging from 14 percent to 25 percent.

The alliance plan also calls for legislation that helps fund a clean energy economic development model for developing and emerging economies and fund measures that provide solutions to those immediately impacted by global warming both domestically and internationally.

During a press call last week, United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard said:

[The Blue Green Alliance believes] climate change legislation is a critical step to jump-starting the U.S. economy. And we agree that the U.S. must significantly reduce our emissions, something we can accomplish by retaining and creating millions of family-sustaining green jobs in the clean energy economy.

While the AFL-CIO joins the Blue Green Alliance in its support of real climate change, the views of the Blue Green Alliance do not necessarily reflect AFL-CIO views. To ensure green jobs are quality jobs, the AFL-CIO announced it is creating the Center for Green Jobs. Starting with $1 million from the Working for America Institute, the AFL-CIO’s workforce and economic development arm, the center will partner with affiliated unions to help pave the way for good union jobs in a variety of the country’s unionized and greening industries. The center also will spread the lessons of AFL-CIO affiliates that have successfully joined the green economy, especially in manufacturing.

Launched by the USW and Sierra Club in 2006, the Blue Green Alliance has since grown to include the Communications Workers of America (CWA), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Laborers and SEIU.

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