Protected: Research
For 20 years BGA has been publishing important research reports and studies on everything from clean energy investments to infrastructure build out.
General Federal Policy
Employment Impacts of New U.S. Clean Energy, Manufacturing, and Infrastructure Laws
This analysis by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst was commissioned by the BlueGreen Alliance and National Skills Coalition (NSC). The report estimates that the combined investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), Inflation Reduction Act, and CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS) would support nearly 3 million jobs per year over the life span of the laws. In total, the research shows the investments will support 19 million job-years.
Released: September 18, 2023
Unprecedented Opportunity: Meeting the Workforce Demands of New Clean Energy, Manufacturing, and Infrastructure Investments
This report from the University of Massachusetts Amherst Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) examines labor supply, demand, and potential shortages from new U.S. clean energy, manufacturing, and infrastructure laws: the Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and CHIPS and Science Act. The analysis was commissioned by the National Skills Coalition (NSC) and BlueGreen Alliance and it builds on a PERI analysis from 2023 that found the combined investments in the three laws will create and support nearly 3 million jobs per year over their lifetime.
Released: February 28, 2024
9 Million Jobs from Climate Action: The Inflation Reduction Act
An analysis commissioned by the BlueGreen Alliance from the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that the more than 100 climate, energy, and environmental investments in the Inflation Reduction Act will create more than 9 million good jobs over the next decade—an average of nearly 1 million jobs each year. That includes more than 6 million jobs created over the next 10 years by grants, loans, and tax credits and nearly 3 million jobs stimulated by new loan guarantee authority for the U.S. Department of Energy. The bill’s broad investments will also help sustain the millions of existing jobs in the clean economy.
Released: August 2022
Then and Now: Worker Safety Under the Trump and Biden-Harris Administrations
This report compares the worker safety policies of the first Trump administration to those of the Biden-Harris administration. The track record clearly illustrates that the first Trump administration endangered workers at every turn, consistently signaling to companies that the government would not punish them for threatening the safety and health of their employees. We can also see a dramatic shift from the Biden-Harris administration. President Biden and Vice President Harris consistently prioritized worker safety and implemented numerous policies to make workplaces safer and healthier and increase oversight of companies and employers.
Released: April 26, 2024
Then and Now: U.S. Manufacturing Under The Trump and Biden-Harris Administrations
Taking a critical look at the industrial policies of the Biden-Harris administration and the first Trump administration, we see a dramatic shift. On several points—including job creation, investment in manufacturing, investment in cleaning up industrial emissions, and domestic momentum in growing industries—we see that the Biden-Harris administration outperformed the Trump administration.
Released: August 20, 2024
Misled: The Impact of the Trump Administration’s Agenda on Working Families and the Environment
This report provides workers and others with the information they need to understand the impact of the policies of the first Trump administration on working families and the environment. For the purposes of this report, the impacts of some of the most egregious actions on workers’ rights and safety, environmental protection, job creation, and pandemic response are reviewed. This report sheds light on the first Trump administration’s actions that have negatively impacted working families, communities, and workplaces.
Released: September 17, 2020
Clean Energy
Making Clean Deliver
This report highlights research that shows increasing wages and growing domestic content in the clean energy sector would not dramatically impact costs or deployment. Job-quality concerns can be addressed and improved through the enactment of strong policy mechanisms, such as labor standards to ensure that jobs being created are high-quality jobs; procurement standards to ensure that investments being made in the clean economy are benefiting workers here in the United States; and manufacturing policies to help ensure we lead in building the next generation of clean technology in America.
Released: August 6, 2021
Energy Efficiency Should be Made in the United States
An analysis from the BlueGreen Alliance Foundation identified a decline in domestic manufacturing of energy efficiency products. In 2007, 84% of energy-efficient products used in the U.S. were manufactured domestically. The data found that today the U.S.-made percentage has fallen to 79%. The report, Energy Efficiency Should be Made in the United States, showed the U.S. share of energy efficiency manufacturing is still strong, however the decline is a cause for concern. The biggest declines seen in Appliances (11%) and Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Cooling (HVAC) systems (10%).
Released: December 13, 2023
Manufacturing Efficiency: How Buy America Policy Can Boost Jobs Manufacturing Energy-Efficient Products
Manufacturing Efficiency: How Buy America Policy Can Boost Jobs Manufacturing Energy-Efficient Products, compares the manufacturing job creation potential of strengthening all retrofits to full deep retrofits, increasing the retrofit rate, and implementing Buy American policies. The report found increasing the rate of residential deep retrofits across the nation coupled with the implementation of Buy American procurement policies could create more than 170,000 American manufacturing jobs.
Released: February 3, 2021
Manufacturing and Industrial Policy
Supplying Ingenuity II: U.S. Suppliers of Key Clean, Fuel-Efficient Vehicle Technologies
Supplying Ingenuity II: U.S. Suppliers of Key Clean, Fuel-Efficient Vehicle Technologies investigates the real companies and jobs in this sector today. Our research finds more than 1,200 U.S. factories and engineering facilities in 48 states— and 288,000 American workers—building technologies that reduce pollution and improve fuel economy for today’s innovative vehicles, from family sedans to long-haul tractor trailers.
Released: May 23, 2017
Driving Investment: How Fuel Efficiency is Rebuilding American Manufacturing
This report illustrates that the “costs” of compliance with fuel economy standards represent added automaker spending on product and manufacturing innovation, additional investments in factories and technology, and purchases of additional and upgraded components from suppliers. In turn, these costs represent a much-needed, multi-billion dollar reinvestment in American manufacturing and jobs nationwide.
Released: January 25, 2018
Electric Vehicles at a Crossroads
Electric vehicle innovation, investment, production, and adoption are growing rapidly, both worldwide and in the United States. As part of an overall revival in innovation and investment in the automotive industry, manufacturers are demonstrating that the United States can be a global leader in clean technology manufacturing, while bringing back high-skill, high-wage, family-supporting jobs. Continuing this trajectory in the electric vehicle (EV) sector will be critical to retaining and growing the next generation of American manufacturing and jobs. The BlueGreen Alliance’s research finds both exciting progress as well as cause for concern.
Released September 12, 2018
Aluminum, Revitalized: Strengthening the Backbone of Our Clean Economy
Aluminum, Revitalized: Strengthening the Backbone of Our Clean Economy is a comprehensive report on how to reverse the recent decline of the U.S. aluminum industry to meet rising aluminum demand for clean energy while creating good-paying jobs, strengthening national security, and reducing industrial emissions. The report highlights how federal investments in the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Defense Production Act, and more can be leveraged to reopen aluminum smelters and retrofit facilities for cleaner manufacturing processes.
Released June 27, 2023
What future will U.S. truck manufacturing have under Trump?
This report, a joint project with the Economic Policy Institute, explores the impacts of the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back support for a clean vehicle transition on the heavy-duty vehicles sector.
Released: January 24, 2025.
The stakes for workers in how policymakers manage the coming shift to all-electric vehicles
This report, which the BlueGreen Alliance collaborated with the Economic Policy Institute to produce, finds that if this shift to battery electric vehicles (BEVs) is done without any policy efforts to shore up U.S. leadership in BEV production or to enhance job quality and equitable access to good jobs, then this sector will see employment decline and job quality continue a downward march. But if the shift to BEVs is accompanied by strategic investments in manufacturing and job quality in the U.S. auto sector, then the number and quality of jobs can rise together with BEV production.
Released: September 22, 2021
Read the full report here (external link).
Infrastructure
Making the Grade 2.0
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This report analyzes the jobs and environmental impact of raising the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) Infrastructure Report Card grades in a variety of sectors to “B” grades over the next decade.
The report found that investing an estimated $2.2 trillion in America’s infrastructure in these sectors to improve them from a “D+” grade overall to a “B” grade—coupled with investments in our natural gas distribution systems—has the potential to support or create an additional 14.5 million job-years across the U.S. economy, add a cumulative $1.66 trillion to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over 10 years, and reduce greenhouse gas pollution, versus a business as-usual approach.
Released: September 7, 2017.
Interconnected—The Economic and Climate Change Benefits of Accelerating Repair and Replacement of America’s Natural Gas Distribution Pipelines
This report from the AFL-CIO and the BlueGreen Alliance highlights the economic and environmental benefits of repairing America’s natural gas distribution systems sooner, rather than later.
Released: July 23, 2014.
Plugging the Leaks 2.0
This analysis finds positive employment impacts from meeting methane standards in the EPA’s supplemental methane rule released in November 2022. These employment impacts are due to investments in emissions reduction technologies—specifically in leak detection and reduction systems, which are more labor intensive than current leak detection technology and practices used by the oil and gas extraction industry. This drives greater employment opportunities compared to the normal, business-as-usual oil and gas operations. The assessment found that over 10,000 net direct and indirect jobs would be created annually in a variety of sectors, including manufacturing, construction, and operations and maintenance through compliance with the rule. With full and continuing adoption of leak reducing technologies and practices at new, modified, and existing oil and gas facilities, this would suggest the creation of over 136,000 job-years through 2035.
Released: July 25, 2023.
Gauging Growth—The Freight Rail Supply Chain and Job-Creation Potential
Gauging Growth shows expanding freight rail presents a significant opportunity to support and create quality U.S. jobs while improving the efficiency of freight movement and ensuring the nation remains competitive in the 21st century global economy.
Released June 15, 2011.