BioTU

Green for All has a simple but ambitious mission: to help build a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.

 

By advocating for a national commitment to job training, employment and entrepreneurial opportunities in the emerging green economy – especially for people from disadvantaged communities -- we fight both poverty and pollution at the same time. We are committed to securing one billion dollars by 2012 to create “green pathways out of poverty” for 250,000 people in the United States, by greatly expanding federal government and private sector commitments to “green-collar” jobs.

The green economy can create job opportunities for low-income people.

A shift to clean energy can improve the health and well-being of low-income people, who suffer disproportionately from cancer, asthma and other respiratory ailments in our dirty-energy economy.

Such a shift can create entrepreneurial, wealth-building opportunities for those who need new avenues of economic advance, too.

 

In other words: a national effort to curb global warming and oil dependence can simultaneously create good jobs, safer streets and healthier communities.

 

For us, our highest calling is to ensure that the clean-energy economy in the 21st century in fact does all of these things. Indeed, we believe that America’s chief moral obligation is to build a green economy that is strong enough to lift many people out of poverty.

 

But that will happen only if we make sure that the very people who have been locked out of the old, grey economy are locked into the new, green one. We must provide equal access to the opportunities and benefits of the new economy.

 

Some will call this unrealistic. They will advise America to keep her dreams small. But that cynicism is the problem, not the solution.

 

A national commitment to “green-collar jobs” will help this nation to address simultaneously our economic, ecological and moral crises.

 

Green Jobs Act (H.R. 2847)
For the first time in history, the United States Senate and House of Representatives have both approved legislation that addresses the climate crisis and the poverty crisis by passing the Green Jobs Act of 2007. If authorized the bill directs $125 million annually for greening the nation's workforce, including job training for 35,000 people every year. Even more unprecedented, the House bill authorizes $25 million each year to fund programs like the Oakland Green Jobs Corps. Those dollars will create green "pathways out of poverty" for poor people and people of color. The Green Jobs Act represents a smart, far-sighted effort to fight pollution and poverty at the same time -- by creating federally-funded job training within the green economy.

 

Unfortunately, not everyone sees the wisdom of our clean energy vision. President Bush vowed to veto this groundbreaking bill -- and the entire energy package -- specifically because of the workforce training component. So while we're celebrating our victory in the House for now, we're also gearing up for our first big fight. We need to build a national movement, and fast.  Join our network of Green For All supporters, and help us stand up to the Bush administration.  Together, we can fight -- and win -- the battle for a national green-collar job training program that lifts people out of poverty.

 

Green For All thanks Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for her stewardship of the Green Jobs Act, as well as Representatives Hilda Solis (D-CA) and John Tierney (D-MA) for sponsoring the this groundbreaking bill. Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) are to be commended for their strong leadership on the issue of green jobs and for their work to get most of provisions from Green Jobs included in the Senate-passed Energy bill, (H.R. 6). Special thanks also goes out to the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, the Apollo Alliance, the Workforce Alliance and the Center for American Progress, our partners in shaping this legislation.