OK Americans. Get ready for real numbers. Here we go!!! The following is a statement by NRDC Legislative Director Scott Slesinger:
“Green jobs are a strong spot in an otherwise weak economy. Green jobs employ 2.7 million Americans, according to the Brookings Institution. Most of those jobs didn’t exist a decade ago; now they’re a lifeline in hard times for nearly 3 million American families.
“That’s not propaganda; it’s progress.
“These jobs are real. They provide real paychecks to real Americans – steelworkers, electricians, machinists, autoworkers, engineers and others. Chairman Issa is attacking a source of strength in our struggling economy, while millions of Americans are on the job advancing the solutions we need to create better health, a cleaner environment and a brighter future for us all.”
Claims by Chairman Issa that such jobs are “propaganda” are based on politics, not facts, and threaten a critical and honest debate on clean energy policies that Americans deserve, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. I am one to say this because I am Conservative in Nature. I believe in equal and low taxes for all.
Furthermore, in NBC News/POLITICO presidential debate, Mitt Romney wrongly stated that green jobs were nowhere to be found. LCV released the following fact check in response:
QUOTE: “[Obama] keeps talking about green jobs, where are they?”
FACT: There are already 2.7 million jobs across the clean energy economy with the clean energy sector growing at a rate of 8.3 percent. Clean energy is already proving to be larger job creation engine than the heavily subsidized fossil-fuels sector, putting Americans back to work in a lackluster economy.
Source:http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/09/top_ten_green_jobs.html
For insight into why more, not less government support of clean energy and Solyndra, see NRDC Renewable Energy Policy Director Nathanael Greene’s blog here: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ngreene/lessons_from_solyndra_we_need.html
