Today, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a state budget that includes several key funding proposals impacting labor unions and the environment. A topline win secured in the budget is maintaining funding for the California Workforce Development Board’s High Road Training Partnerships program.

New analysis commissioned by National Skills Coalition (NSC) and the BlueGreen Alliance (BGA), shows that combined historic investments in clean energy, manufacturing, and infrastructure from three new federal laws—the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Science Act—will create more than 190,000 jobs per year combined in Ohio, Michigan, Colorado, and Oregon over the next decade.

Companies and economic development agencies around the country today tuned into a webinar series from the BlueGreen Alliance (BGA), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Evergreen Action, and the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) designed to help companies create competitive applications for the final round of funding from the 48C Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit. 

A promising strategy to achieve these dual goals of reducing emissions while investing in U.S. clean manufacturing is the implementation of a carbon border fee. This fee would be applied to imported industrial products that have a higher carbon intensity than their domestic equivalents, effectively rewarding domestic production manufactured under stronger environmental and labor regulations.

The BlueGreen Alliance responded to a request for information to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on how to best support mid-scale commercial direct air capture (MSC DAC) demonstration facilities.

The U.S. Departments of Treasury and Energy today announced a second round of project applications for the Advanced Energy Project Tax Credit (48C).

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today unveiled a new rule to reduce carbon pollution from existing and future fossil fuel power plants.
BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director Jason Walsh spoke at the event unveiling the rule at Howard University and released a statement following the event.

The first Earth Day was observed in 1970. Even then, early environmental activists understood the value of labor in their endeavors for a cleaner earth. Former United Autoworkers President Walter Reuther was an integral part to this important holiday. President Biden and Congressional Democrats continued this legacy by passing the most pro-labor pro-environmental laws in U.S. history.

Too many of our Earth Days have been marred by steep industrial emissions and a decline in domestic manufacturing. That decline has equated to importing emissions through foreign goods made with lower environmental and labor standards. Thanks to the Biden administration, the tide is changing for our industrial sector.

The U.S. Departments of Treasury and Energy today released additional details about the first round of project recipients receiving the Advanced Energy Project Tax Credit (48C). Initial information about the selections was announced in March 2024, but project specifics could not be made available at that time.

The BlueGreen Alliance submitted comments in response to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s request for comments on the proposed general applicability public interest waiver of the Build America, Buy America Act as applied to the Clean Ports Program.

The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has released details of a new rule to protect mine workers from silica dust—the most significant contributor to the resurgence of black lung disease.