Idea of the Day: Create Jobs Through Clean Infrastructure Investments

January 8, 2009

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Our country is currently in a financial recession. The number of jobs in the United States has declined for 11 months in a row, the unemployment rate has increased to 6.7 percent, and even before this decline, job growth has been meager since 2001.

We must reverse this trend. Investments in clean energy and efficiency as part of the upcoming economic stimulus package will help kick-start the clean energy economy and create millions of jobs. In collaboration with the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, CAP released a report in September 2008 detailing how a $100 billion investment in clean energy and efficiency technologies and infrastructure would create 2 million jobs over two years, nearly four times as many jobs created by a similar level of investment in oil and gas.

We must prioritize clean infrastructure investments, including efficient green buildings; improved and scaled-up low-carbon energy production, transmission, and distribution; mass transportation and rail systems; and job programs to train Americans to run our clean energy future.

For more on this topic, please see:

• Investing in a Clean Energy Present and Future: Opportunities and the Costs of Inaction by Kit Batten