BlueGreen News for You: Manufacturing, Just Transition, EVs, and more!
BlueGreen Quarterly
July 22, 2021
This is your quarterly update on how the BlueGreen Alliance unites labor unions and environmental organizations to solve today’s challenges in ways that create and maintain quality jobs and build a clean, thriving, and equitable economy.
Want to help us identify ways to turn today’s environmental challenges into job-creating and economic opportunities? Add your voice to millions of members and supporters!
Jason's Take
(A word from our Executive Director)
“America is making progress to build back better than we were before the pandemic but there is still more to do. The bottom line is that the bipartisan infrastructure bill cannot be the end of our investments in America’s future. It must simply be a step along the way.
“To build a strong and clean economy, and address the long-standing inequities in our country, we need investments to revitalize and retool America’s manufacturing sector and bring back the good-paying jobs we have lost; repair and modernize our infrastructure with funding that goes beyond the proposed bipartisan bill; grow clean energy and energy efficiency; and support and rebuild our care economy.
“We need to pass the American Jobs and American Families Plans.”
Legislative Update
Investing in Manufacturing and Infrastructure
In a joint letter to President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, leaders from the BlueGreen Alliance urged them to seize this window of opportunity and pass bold legislation that builds on the American Jobs Plan and American Families Plan, conditioned on high-road labor, equity, and environmental standards.
Just Transition
The United Steelworkers Union, the Utility Workers Union of America, and the Union of Concerned Scientists joined us for a virtual Capitol Hill briefing highlighting our recently released National Energy Transition Policy Framework.
Electric Vehicles
We partnered with the United Steelworkers, United Auto Workers, and the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council to produce a backgrounder, EVs are Coming. Will They be Made in the USA?, which reviews the potential for job gains or losses related to the coming electrification of vehicles, and the actions needed to ensure we safeguard and build domestic manufacturing and jobs as the U.S. and global vehicle fleet shifts to electric.
Testimony
Our Executive Director Jason Walsh testified in front of the House Natural Resources Committee about reducing pollution and creating jobs through offshore wind as well as the Senate Finance Committee on the tax code's role in creating clean economy jobs. In addition, our Director of Advanced Manufacturing and Transportation, Zoe Lipman, testified to the Senate Banking Committee on capitalizing on opportunities in the clean energy economy.
Buy Clean
We supported major “Buy Clean” legislation which passed in Minnesota, Colorado, and Washington, ensuring that products and materials that are used for public projects in those states—like infrastructure improvements—are the cleanest and most sustainable available.
New Research
A BlueGreen Alliance survey found 90% percent of voters across six key states and across the political spectrum prioritize repairing and modernizing America’s aging physical infrastructure and rebuilding and retooling American manufacturing to build more products and technology here in the United States.
The survey, conducted April 5-13, by Hart Research in Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, showed strong support—across the political spectrum with Democratic, Republican, and independent voters—for investments like those proposed in President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan.
The voters also placed a high priority on strengthening America’s social infrastructure, public services, and human service workforce (84%). Increasing the production of clean energy and investing in innovative clean technologies was widely supported (72%).
“There is wide agreement that this recovery must bring good-paying jobs back to the United States, focus on communities that have been left behind, and include measures that ensure that the economy we rebuild today creates the good-paying jobs of the future, across the country.”
— Jason Walsh, Executive Director, BlueGreen Alliance
Respondents also registered strong support for key measures to strengthen American manufacturing and rebuild and strengthen the nation’s infrastructure systems:
- 94% support improving and enforcing trade policies to stop the offshoring of good jobs and industries, and closing corporate tax loopholes that reward companies that outsource jobs;
- 93% support ensuring major public investments in infrastructure and clean energy technologies include requirements that the products, technologies, and materials used are made in America and the jobs provide good pay and benefits;
- 91% support making investments to modernize U.S. industries like steel, aluminum, and glass, in order to manufacture these products in a way that produces less pollution; and
- 84% support making investments to retool factories to produce the cutting-edge products of the future, like clean vehicles and clean energy technologies.
One Big Thing: For America, By America
We see it every day: People across this country are putting in a hard day’s work, as they have for a long time—but in return, their paychecks aren’t going as far, their communities are struggling, and their futures are threatened by the climate crisis.
That’s exactly why we launched “For America, By America”—and we hope you’ll get involved.
BlueGreen in the Headlines
- Labor, Green Groups Urge Biden to Reject Any 'Watered-down' Infrastructure Deal — Reuters
- The Wage Gap That Threatens Biden's Climate Plan — Politico
- WV Legislature Approves Resolution Asking Federal Government for $8 Billion for Mine Reclamation — Charleston Gazette-Mail
- Clean Manufacturing is a Climate Priority — The Stand
- WV Clean Energy Advocates Seek to Reframe Infrastructure Debate as Manchin, Capito Have Biden's Ear — Charleston Gazette-Mail
- Workforce Standards: A Centerline On the Road to Sustainable, Equitable Recovery — Desert Sun
BlueGreen Solidarity Highlights
Racial Justice is Environmental Justice
Discover the story of Jamar Clark who died at the hands of police in Minneapolis and how the Sierra Club responded, a powerful example of solidarity between communities of color and historically white-run legacy organizations.
Equitable Energy Economy Requires Investment in Workers
A new analysis from the Utility Workers Union of American and the Union of Concerned Scientists estimate a $33 billion to $83 billion investment in America’s coal workers is needed to ensure a fair and equitable shift to a clean energy economy.
Looking Ahead
Economic Recovery
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the urgent need for adequate investment in the care economy. Voters strongly support investment in care jobs to transform the lives of not just individual workers, but of whole communities. They also support investment in American manufacturing to ensure we lead and benefit from creating the technologies of the future.
Our new campaign “For America, By America” not only highlights the need but demonstrates that voters want these critical investments. Our goal is to keep these issues in the spotlight until adequate action is taken by Congress and the Biden administration.
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BlueGreen Alliance
2701 University Ave SE #209
Minneapolis, MN 55414
United States
