April 2, 2008
Steelmills to Windmills
Jobs in Pennsylvania's clean energy economy

By Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks
Special to the Apollo News Service

Second in a series

In the absence of federal action to achieve a clean energy economy, governors and mayors across the country are taking the lead. They have done extraordinary things.

With leadership from his state legislature, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has created the country’s first state climate change policy, capping carbon emissions as well as promoting the installation of solar energy in California. Gov. Brian Schweitzer has done groundbreaking work on biofuels and wind in Montana. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius from Kansas has promoted renewables and slowed constructions of new power plants that can’t reduce carbon emissions, while also working with Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska to advance the use of biofuels.

At the same time hundreds of mayors from around the country have pledged to cut their carbon emissions below the levels called for in the Kyoto protocol, and are advancing new green buildings, clean vehicle fleets, and a host of changes to municipal operations. All are showing the leadership that has been missing in the nation’s capital.

Two governors from fossil fuel–rich states, though, have taken steps that deserve special attention to move beyond carbon-based energy, powered by new technology. In Pennsylvania, Governor Ed Rendell, a Democrat, has embraced the environment as a central organizing principle of economic revitalization. Governor Rendell has used it to attract the better part of a billion dollars of new investment and create literally thousands of jobs during his tenure. In New Mexico, Governor Bill Richardson, another Democrat, is working to substantially reduce carbon emissions as a central feature of building a more efficient economy that generates good jobs and prosperity. In both states, the 20th century economy built on wasteful and polluting use of energy is being replaced by the 21st century economy based on energy efficiency, and generating power from clean and renewable energy sources.

Thousands of New Clean Energy Jobs in Pennsylvania
“Pennsylvania is a manufacturing state, and in manufacturing, you depend on having customers,” says Kathleen McGinty, the state secretary of the environment. “To the extent that government can use its purchasing power to be a force facilitating energy patriotism, we have enabled the private sector to step into these emerging markets, knowing there will be demand for their product.”

In 2000, Rendell announced his Energy Harvest plan, a program to advance energy independence, and built a political coalition on the self-interests of a multitude of players. He demonstrated to utilities, unions, communities, miners, and investors why it was in their personal best interest to support a program of clean energy and efficiency. He was fortunate in having a progressive labor leadership that intuitively understood the power of new energy to build well-paying jobs. In February 2007 he announced a major expansion of his energy independence initiative designed to save consumers $10 billion over ten years.

Among his aides, McGinty has run with the ball, working closely with the Department of Economic Development to recruit clean-energy businesses and create a dedicated clean-energy finance authority to cut the cost of capital for businesses locating in the commonwealth. Pennsylvania in 2004 passed an ambitious Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard that mandates that renewable and advanced energy sources will supply 18 percent of the energy in the state within fifteen years. The strategy has worked.

In 2004, Rendell and McGinty were able to recruit the Spanish wind turbine manufacturer Gamesa to locate its first North American plant in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to manufacture the massive blades for
state-of-the-art wind turbines. The plant is now up and running, and the workers are represented by the United Steel Workers of America, making good on the promise that President Leo Gerard staked his reputation on, that clean energy can create good manufacturing jobs with high wages. Gamesa is currently building three more manufacturing facilities on the site of a closed steel mill and is investing in eighteen wind farms around the commonwealth, all of which is forecast to create over a thousand jobs during the next five years.

Gamesa is not just a flash in the pan. Recently, Pennsylvania wooed the German solar firm Connergy and convinced it to locate its next manufacturing plant in the state to access the market for solar energy that is being created by the ambitious dedicated solar power set-asides in the state’s alternative energy standard.

Clean Energy Companies Arrive in Pennsylvania
The successes don’t stop there. Bilbao-based Iberdrola, owner of renewables giant Scottish Power, is one of the leading private electric utilities in the world and the largest renewable energy operator on the
planet, with over 3,500 megawatts of wind energy in operation in 2006. Iberdrola, too, is locating its North American headquarters in Pennsylvania.

At the same time, Pennsylvania is in negotiations with a Canadian company that produces battery systems for hybrid vehicles and futuristic fuel-cell energy systems, to locate a new plant in Pennsylvania to be close to the emerging market there. All this while Governor Rendell is still celebrating a new $250 million investment in biofuels in Clearfields County, an area of the state that has not seen that kind of new business location in years. These investments did not happen by accident. They were the result of political will and visionary leadership.

The Rendell administration, which counts 3,500 new jobs connected to the state's new clean energy economy, is also committed to building jobs through energy efficiency. It expects to attract business opportunities in every part of the energy conservation value chain, from information technology to smart electric meters and the skilled technologists needed to operate those systems.

Energy efficiency is serviced not only by large international firms like Honeywell, but also by homegrown start-ups like the Pennsylvania based enterprise Enerwise, an energy management company that offers hardware and software and makes money by reducing energy use. Information technologies dedicated to energy have found a home in Pennsylvania. Moving forward, Pennsylvania is gunning to get more into the game of solar manufacturing by luring companies now going to the solar-friendly German market.

The governor has also created a program called Growing Greener 2, which makes tax-free bond financing available to fund new bricks-and-mortar clean-energy projects, and launched the Penn Security Fuels Initiative to build a market for biofuels producers in the commonwealth. In Pennsylvania, the leadership has understood that solving global warming means jobs and economic development. Far from being a center of costs, a new clean energy economy is the source of innovation.

Progress in New Mexico
In the desert Southwest, New Mexico also has shown that the clean energy has a bipartisan appeal and that a dedicated clean-energy policy can succeed. New Mexico is an oil and coal–producing state that historically has exported nearly 50 percent of its electricity from fossil fuels, yet under Governor Bill Richardson’s leadership it is looking to clean energy as it looks toward the future. Richardson saw a huge national void that he wanted to fill “for New Mexico, for the West, and for the nation.”

His Secretary of the Environment, Ron Curry, puts it this way: “The important thing to understand about climate actions in New Mexico is the critical role of the leadership of the governor. He would rather have cabinet secretaries who err on the side of being bold rather than sitting on our hands.”

Working in a bipartisan partnership with Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richardson and other western governors are taking a systematic approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the West. Richardson launched the Southwest Climate Change Initiative with neighboring Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. He pledged to reduce New Mexico’s greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2012, to 10 percent below that by 2020, and cut emissions 75 percent by 2050. That consortium grew in February 2007, when five states agreed to a pact that will ultimately lead to a cap and-trade system among all the state partners.

In the absence of a mandatory national policy to cap carbon emissions, New Mexico chose to become the first state to join the voluntary carbon trading market of the Chicago Climate Exchange as well, gaining valuable experience in establishing baseline inventories and meeting reduction targets across state government. The Chicago Climate Exchange now has two hundred members, and cumulatively they have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 32 million metric tons, or the equivalent of two New Mexico coal plants. Secretary Curry says they “can still do much more, but the point is that this is happening right now, in the absence of any national policy. The governor is putting meat on the bone today.”

Governor Richardson already has laurels to rest upon, having saved consumers $2 billion and the atmosphere 267 million tons of CO2 with these actions. He is just getting started. He plans to expand his renewable portfolio standard to a 25 percent goal by 2020. Governors Rendell and Richardson -- and a host of state and local leaders -- are showing what is possible. They are mapping out a future that is both prosperous and sustainable. America can't wait. It is time for national leaders with vision to give the country what it deserves, to protect the planet, its people, build the economy, and restore America’s global leadership.

This article is excerpted from "Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy," by Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks. Copyright 2008. Reproduced by permission of Island Press, Washington, D.C. Jay Inslee is a Democratic Congressman from Washington state, and Bracken Hendricks is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and co-founder and former executive director of the Apollo Alliance.

For more information

Apollo's Fire

Representative Jay Inslee
Member of Congress
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Bracken Hendricks
Senior Fellow
Center for American American Progress
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Pennsylvania Office of Energy and Technology Deployment

Gamesa Web site

New Mexico Energy Conservation and Management Division

U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
State Activities and Partnerships Home Page

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