National Business, Labor and Environmental Groups Urge Senate Energy Bill Authors to Include Domestic Manufacturing Investments

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Sam Haswell: (415) 371-1700 x201
March 24, 2010

Groups Call Sen. Sherrod Brown’s IMPACT Act Key to Unlocking U.S. Clean Energy Job Creation

SAN FRANCISCO – More than 17 national business, labor and environmental groups signed on to a letter addressed to Sens. John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman today urging the senators to boost U.S. job growth by including critical domestic clean energy manufacturing investments in their bipartisan climate and clean energy bill. Currently, 70 percent of American clean energy systems and components are manufactured overseas.

Specifically, the groups – which include the Apollo Alliance, AFL-CIO, Environmental Defense Fund and the United Steelworkers, among others – called on the senators to ensure that “America becomes not only a consumer of clean-energy technologies, but also a leading producer of them” by including Senator Sherrod Brown’s Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology (IMPACT) Act in their broader clean energy and climate legislation.

The IMPACT Act would authorize $30 billion to establish state-level revolving loan funds to help small and medium-sized manufacturers retrain workers, retool facilities for clean energy production, and become more energy efficient. It would also expand funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, thereby ensuring that manufacturers have access to the technical assistance needed to enter clean energy supply chains. Such provisions, which were already included in the House-passed American Clean Energy and Security Act, would create 680,000 direct American manufacturing jobs and nearly 2 million indirect jobs over the next five years.

The IMPACT Act has been endorsed by more than 220 businesses across the country, the National Association of Manufacturers, and a diverse range of organizations and labor unions. More on the IMPACT Act, including the full list of endorsers, is available at the Apollo Alliance website.

“As America transitions to cleaner sources of energy, investment in domestic clean energy manufacturing and industrial efficiency are the key to creating American jobs making the products demanded by this shift, developing technologies here that will drive the 21^st century global energy economy….and achieving true energy independence,” the letter reads.

The letter’s signatories include the Apollo Alliance, 1Sky, AFL-CIO, American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Climate Protection Action Fund, Change to Win, Energy Conversion Devices, Environmental Defense Fund, Gamesa USA, Green For All, Infinia Corporation, Laborers’ International Union of North America, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Solar Energy Industries Association, and the United Steelworkers of America.

The full text of the letter is available here.