The Future of Green Jobs

There won't be one without coordinated effort from business, labor and government. And government needs to take the lead, especially in formulating a real and strong energy policy. Lack of regulatory and policy certainty is paralyzing investment in our future energy economy, costing both jobs and our increasingly tenuous status as a presumptive global leader in cleantech.

In a speech today to Gen44, Obama said:

We cannot let this country fall backwards... We've started investing again... in home-grown clean energy... I want [future clean energy technology] built all right here in the United States of America, because we're all about making it here in America.

Watch it:



But Obama said of energy policy recently that "we may have to end up having to do it in chunks, as opposed to some sort of comprehensive legislation." If he also truly believes that "energy is our great project, this generation's great project" then he should reject the piecemeal approach to which he is gravitating. Such baby steps will prolong the uncertainty so badly that it will do more harm than good; especially after our sclerotic Congress gets done with its inevitable, glacial, ritual evisceration of even these ultimately modest proposals.

Strong bold leadership is needed to unabashedly advocate for comprehensive, long-lasting policy, not faint gestures that destroy confidence, sending investment off-shore. We need only look at the example of other countries to see what can be done.

Said Scott Paul of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, "Germany is the world’s leader in solar. It’s not because Germany is sunny."