Green Jobs and Trade

Testimony Before the Senate Subcommittee on Green Jobs and the New Economy

By Kate Gordon | February 15, 2011

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SOURCE:Center for American Progress

Kate Gordon testifies before the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Green Jobs and the New Economy.

Read the testimony at CAP Action

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. The issue of green jobs and trade is critical in light of the triple crises America faces: an economic crisis that has left 14 million people unemployed; an energy security crisis that leaves us vulnerable to every international incident and natural or man-made disaster; and a climate crisis that threatens the very planet we live on. In true American entrepreneurial spirit, we at the Center for American Progress Action Fund believe that these crises bring enormous opportunity, but only if the United States decides to get off the bench and join the green jobs race already being run by most of the other developed countries in the world. I am glad to share my and the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s perspective on green jobs and the global economy, and I look forward to your comments and questions.

In my testimony I will discuss the global clean energy marketplace, and specifically the work other countries are doing to become innovation leaders in the new green economy. As a contrast, I will point out where the United States has failed to pass policies and make investments in the “building blocks of innovation” that made us leaders in prior economic transformations, including our infrastructure, our workforce, our research and development capabilities, and our manufacturing sector. I will conclude by recommending several specific steps this Congress and administration can take to put America back on track to lead the clean tech revolution, just as we led the Industrial and high tech revolutions that came before. These recommendations include:

• Stabilizing the market for green technologies by passing a national Clean Energy Standard
• Crafting finance policies to make more public and private capital available to innovators to invent, commercialize, and produce green technologies
• Modernizing our basic infrastructure to allow businesses to more effectively collaborate and compete in domestic and international markets
• Investing more in science and math education and in workforce training to ensure we have workers able to participate in the technology-driven economy of the present and future
• Promoting international trade policies that ensure access to foreign markets, and the free flow of goods, services, knowledge, and capital across borders.
• Providing incentives, through competitions and other “race to the top” strategies, to lift up innovative energy solutions at the local, state, and regional level

Kate Gordon testifies before the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Green Jobs and the New Economy.

Read the testimony at CAP Action