A Big Breakthrough on Green Jobs « It’s Getting Hot In Here

The New York State Senate and Assembly, too often a model of corruption and dysfunctionality, rose above petty politics last week to pass forward-thinking legislation on climate and energy, setting a precedent for bipartisanship and a sensible cap and trade system. The State Senate passed the groundbreaking Green Job/Green New York Act, with strong support from Republicans, Democrats, and the Working Families Party, which spearheaded the legislation. The bill — expected to be signed into law this week by Gov. David Patterson leverages $112m in revenue from the Northeasts’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) into $5 billion of private investment to finance home weatherization, energy efficiency projects, and green jobs creation.

We should all be paying closer attention for three reasons:

1) It is one of the first large-scale pieces of legislation that concreteley demonstrates why green jobs are a win-win-win. Homeowners win by reducing their energy costs. The private sector wins by gaining a safer investment with strong expected returns. strong return on investment. And New Yorkers benefit through the creation of 16,000 new jobs and the increased economic activity and tax receipts the program will generate. It’s a blueprint that can work other states and regions as well.

2) It’s also a model for sensible national climate and energy policy. While the version of the American Clean Energy & Securities Act that passed in the House gives away a substantial portion of the pollution allowances to utilities, the RGGI program in the Northeast auctions off the credits creating the $112 million in revenue, which the state is leveraging 50x to create new jobs and save homeowners on their heating and electricity bills.

3) Finally, the Green Job/Green New York Act highlights the power of bipartisan efforts to achieve common sense solutions. Republican support is what made the bill possible. Rather than fight any effort for sensible policy like the national Republican leadership, local leaders have proven to be in touch with the concerns of their constituents, helping to pass the bill 52-8 in the Senate and 147-0 in the Assembly. But putting politics aside and the needs of New Yorkers first, they showed the way for national cooperation on this issue.

To learn more about the bill and its passage, check out David Sasson’s piece on SolveClimate.org.

This entry is cross-posted on Grist.org.

About Billy

At the end of 2002, freaked out about the deepening climate crisis, Billy dropped out of Yale University in the middle of his junior year to build a youth movement. He co-founded and led the Energy Action Coalition, which has become the largest youth advocacy organization in the world working on clean energy and global warming issues. Since early 2008, Billy has expanded his work beyond the Energy Action Coalition into a focus on building the green economy and creating green jobs for young people. He has been a consultant for Green for All on their "Green Jobs Now" day of action and developed the idea and campaign to create a Clean Energy Corps, a proposal based on the Civilian Conservation Corps designed to rebuild the country and create millions of new jobs and opportunities for community service. The community service component, The Clean Energy Service Corps, has become law as part of the Serve America Act, and other components of the proposal have been incorporated into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the American Clean Energy and Security Act. A serial social entrepreneur, Billy has helped launch dozens of youth, climate and green jobs related organizations and initiatives, including Green Owl Records, a green music label affiliated with Warner Music Group; The Navajo Green Economy Coalition, which recently passed groundbreaking green jobs legislation on the Navajo Nation; and the Alignment Process, a collaborative of 50 large progressive organizations working on passing strong federal legislation to build a green economy and address global warming. Originally from New York City, he now lives with his wife Wahleah Johns and daughter Tohaana in Flagstaff, AZ.

2 Responses to “A Big Breakthrough on Green Jobs”

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1 Meme Mine Sep 16th, 2009 at 5:25 pm

Why aren’t wind companies prosecuted for killing eagles and other birds, when oil companies are fined heavily for the same offence?

1 Make our site better – 5 min survey for readers and writers « It’s Getting Hot In Here Trackback on Jan 7th, 2010 at 5:13 pm

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