Clean Energy, Jobs and National Security

This year, with families and neighbors reeling from job losses, we get a clear view on how policies pursued in Washington over the last decade have left Main Street, North Carolina more vulnerable than ever.

But while some parts of our economy have collapsed, the so-called green energy economy has been growing and adding jobs in North Carolina at a record pace. With the right investments, the clean energy private sector here is projected to add over 50,000 jobs – with many more opportunities on the horizon.

A phrase I’ve heard recently: “green is gold for North Carolina”. For example, the empty furniture factories in downtown Lexington may be the future home of a solar tech and weatherization institute.

But there is much more at stake. When gas prices at the local pump shot up to over $4.00 per gallon last year and our monthly utility bills sky-rocketed, we all got a reminder that our everyday quality of life is dependent on foreign countries that sell us oil by the barrel. Developing alternative and domestic sources of clean energy – and creating incentives to conserve – are important to regaining control of our economy. If we do nothing, prices are sure to spike again when we come out of this deep recession.

But, what we don’t see on a day to day basis is that by purchasing foreign oil from unstable regimes – transferring over $1 billion per day to the Middle East – we are unintentionally funding some of the very terrorist groups we are fielding troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Think about that for a minute. How many North Carolina families have sent a son or daughter or husband or wife in uniform to the Middle East in the last years? We’re deploying to a part of the world that is strategically important because of its oil to fight an enemy we’re subsidizing by buying that oil. North Carolina has a lot riding on this fight. Simply put, energy independence is also a national security issue for us.

But it is a national security issue for another reason as well – 11 retired American generals and admirals, Pentagon planners and even Bush administration national security strategists have identified climate change from carbon emissions as a “threat multiplier” in the volatile parts of the world where terrorists feed on instability – from the Horn of Africa to Pakistan. If we don’t address this threat, to quote retired Marine General Anthony Zinni – no wild-eyed liberal – “we will pay the price later in military terms”.

I went to Washington last week to meet with national security experts about the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act – legislation filed Wednesday in the U.S. Senate written to help create clean, green, sustainable jobs that can’t be outsourced overseas, to transition our economy to alternative and domestic energy sources and to check climate changing carbon emissions. (I also talked to experts about Afghanistan, but that is a topic for another day.)

The legislation has a long way to go – and there are parts of it that have to be fleshed out before it would get my vote. But it has already attracted endorsements as diverse as Duke Energy and the Natural Gas Alliance to CWA, LIUNA and SEIU to the National Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and the National Security Network.

Still, there will be some nay-sayers who will cloak their narrow opposition in language like “jobs killer” and “energy tax”. They tend to ignore that the status quo is sure to mean soaring gas and utility prices when the economy rebounds. Doing nothing is a guaranteed “jobs killer” – a guaranteed “energy tax”. Could it be that the nay-sayers profit from the status quo?

But I’ve been part of this drama before in the State Senate, as a co-sponsor of the Clean Smokestacks Act of 2002, which made North Carolina a national leader in cleaning our skies of other health and environmental hazards – leading to the best air quality this summer in 3 decades (http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/nc_air_cleaner_this_year). And created jobs in Durham where scrubbers are made, without raising energy costs on consumers or businesses.

Similarly, the legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate last week can be crafted to protect our pocket-books against short-term costs. And put us on the path to 2 million new American green jobs, energy independence and a stronger national security. Done right, North Carolina is poised to reap the benefits.

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