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China and Its U.S. Wind Farm Partner Promise More American Jobs |
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After a public outcry over China’s plan to seek $450 million in economic recovery funds to build a wind farm in Texas that would create only 30 U.S. jobs, the companies involved are now promising to put more Americans to work.
USA Today reports the companies—a U.S. private equity firm and a Chinese turbine maker—also will build a plant in the United States that will make wind turbines while employing 1,000 people. The companies did not indicate the timeframe for building the plant, which would be one of the biggest in the nation for wind turbines.
Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, says:
It’s a start, but it just shows how far we have to go [to catch up in the production of wind turbines and other clean-energy products.]
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has asked the Obama administration to block federal stimulus funds from going to the Texas wind farm unless it uses U.S.-made turbines. Schumer says stimulus funds should create jobs in the United States, not in China.
(You can take action now. Click here to tell U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu not to send our tax dollars overseas and that U.S. stimulus money must create American green jobs.)
The public was outraged over China’s plans to build the Texas wind farm, which would create 30 permanent jobs here and 2,000 in China. United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard said it best:
We’ve got a message for Washington: Hell no! We’re not giving tax dollars to China. What’s wrong with these businesses and our government? It is the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. It’s not the Chinese Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The Texas project is just the tip of the iceberg of foreign firms getting stimulus money to create clean energy. A study by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University showed that of the $1.05 billion of stimulus funds spent on clean-energy grants since Sept. 1, an astronomical 84 percent—or $849 million—has gone to foreign wind companies, with one firm collecting more than $500 million alone.
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why do we need China at all,they’ll screw us later anyway
Why would we want ANY foreign wind mill partners? I thought the whole idea was energy independence from energy from foreign sources. Why give away any stimulus money to foreign countries?
The money could have been spent on U.S. steel and other local materials and labor to build the factories right here where we need the jobs. Engineering and construction crews would be put to work immediately and the cities they are built in would benefit, here not in China or Mexico. There should be laws to keep the stimulus money here and should not be negotiable while our economy is in the toilet.