The U.S. House of Representatives today passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a budget reconciliation bill that includes $369 billion in energy and climate investments and will create an estimated 9 million jobs over 10 years. Additionally, the bill will reduce emissions by 40% by 2030, support economic and racial justice programs, and create good-paying, union jobs across the nation. With today’s vote, the bill will be sent to the president’s desk to be signed into law. 

Following the vote, the BlueGreen Alliance released the following statement from Executive Director Jason Walsh.

Offshore wind energy presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to contribute to this mission if developed responsibly with high road labor standards, a domestic supply chain, equitable community benefits, and environmental protection that avoids, minimizes, and mitigates impacts to wildlife, ecosystems, and natural resources at each phase of development.

This Policy Agenda presents BlueGreen Alliance California’s policy goals for 2022. Below, we describe
priority campaigns and practical demands of policymakers in the economic sectors within which we are
working. BGA CA stands ready to work with all government, non-profit, and private sector stakeholders to
advance these intersecting goals, and others, through legislation and regulation in 2022. We hope you will
join us.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced today the upcoming auction of two lease areas for the development of offshore wind in the Carolina Long Bay. The leases cover more than 110,000 acres and once developed, could provide enough offshore wind energy to power nearly 500,000 homes.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a new initiative to build up the nation’s lithium battery supply chain during a meeting of the Biden administration’s Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities today in West Virginia.

Today, the BlueGreen Alliance released two new videos featuring members from West Virginia local unions—the United Steelworkers (USW), American Federation of Teachers West Virginia (AFT-WV), Service Employees International Union (SEIU)—and members of the National Black Lung Association, including a former mineworker suffering from Black Lung Disease and a woman who lost her husband to the disease.

The bipartisan deal is a start, not the end, of what we need to build back better. Congress must act boldly and invest in America to build a clean, prosperous, and equitable economy.

Leaders from the BlueGreen Alliance, a national partnership of labor unions and environmental organizations, sent a letter to President Biden and leaders in Congress urging them to use their leadership to find a path forward and pass the Build Back Better Act as soon as feasible.

The Build Back Better Act (BBBA) will invest over $15 billion in economic development, growing renewable energy and energy efficiency in impacted communities, revitalizing American manufacturing, and targeting new jobs to workers dislocated by America’s energy shift.

The BlueGreen Alliance submitted comments outlining the pathways for the Federal Government to use its scale and procurement power to help achieve net-zero emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050 and launching the first-ever national Buy Clean initiative with the release of E.O. 14057, “Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability.”

Provisions included in the House passed Build Better Back Act (BBBA) legislation are essential to getting this job done. The bill makes an historic investment in the expansion and retooling of domestic clean energy, vehicle and component manufacturing, the transformation of our industrial sector to reduce emissions and enhance competitiveness, as well as the necessary…

Electric vehicles (EVs) are coming, and our global competitors are rushing to capture the economic, jobs, and manufacturing benefits of this shift.