Ad Highlights Workers in the Green Economy, Encourages Strong Climate Legislation

WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 15, 2009) The BlueGreen Alliance began running an ad this week in Pennsylvania entitled, “America Wants Green Jobs” to highlight working people in the green economy and to encourage strong climate change legislation to create millions of jobs building the clean energy economy while reducing global warming and moving America towards energy independence.

View the ad here, or visit www.bluegreenalliance.org.

“We can put millions of people back to work building the clean energy economy,” said David Foster, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance. “Strong clean energy and climate change legislation will quickly and effectively create more good, green jobs across the country, while at the same time helping to solve global warming and increasing our energy independence.”

The ad features Troy Galloway, an operator at a Pennsylvania Gamesa facility and a member of the United Steelworkers. The Spanish wind-turbine company set up U.S. operations in Pennsylvania after the state passed an alternative energy portfolio standard.

The BlueGreen Alliance said that the jobs in the green economy are many of the jobs that already exist today. For example, investing in wind power can create jobs for iron and steelworkers, sheet metal workers, and machinists. Investments in solar power can create jobs engineers and welders, and building retrofits can create jobs for electricians, carpenters and truck drivers.

“With unemployment at 7.5 percent in Pennsylvania, and after we suffered the largest single-month job loss for the state in 13 years in February, we need to put people to work in Pennsylvania, and building a green economy holds the potential to do that,” said John DeFazio, District 10 Director of the United Steelworkers. ”

The BlueGreen Alliance is a national partnership of labor unions and environmental organizations dedicated to expanding the number and quality of jobs in the green economy. Launched by the Sierra Club and United Steelworkers in 2006, BGA has since grown to include the Communications Workers of America (CWA), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) – uniting more than six million people in pursuit of good jobs, a clean environment and a green economy.

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