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Bill passes House; now on to conference committee

Hooray! This week Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis (CA-32) officially became the most important environmental heroine you've never heard of.

Solis, a Latina Congresswoman from Los Angeles, introduced the Green Jobs Act of 2007 (H.R. 2847). The 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.

Guess what? On Wednesday, the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee passed her bill by a bipartisan vote of 26 to 18. This is the first step in the House toward providing job training every year for about 35,000 U.S. workers (and would-be workers) in green and clean industries.

The Act would help to meet green industry's demand for a skilled "green-collar" workforce in areas like solar panel installation, building weatherization, wind farm construction, etc. And it will help create green pathways out of poverty for those seeking job opportunities in the booming green economy.

Similar legislation was offered as an amendment to H.R. 6 by Sens. Sanders and Clinton and passed by voice vote this month.

For decades, Congress has been bogged down in a stale debate: "Should we grow the economy or protect the environment?"

Solis is leading the Congress to embrace a new approach. She is saying: "Let's grow the economy by protecting the environment."

For more information about the Green Jobs Act, you can contact Megan J. Uzzell. She is Congresswoman Solis' awesome Legislative Director (megan.uzzell[at]mail.house.gov).

And to learn more about Congresswoman Solis's work, please visit her webpage or view clips of Congresswoman Solis at work.

We at the Ella Baker Center -- as well as the National Apollo Alliance, Center for American Progress, the Workforce Alliance, and many other organizations -- are proud to support Congresswoman Solis, Congressman John Tierney (D-MA), Congressman George Miller (D-CA), and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as they lead this important effort.

Here is the press release George Miller's office put out yesterday:

Vader, Cheney, same same

The brilliant series of pieces on Dick (Vader) Cheney continues with the latest installment about destroying salmon runs for partisan purposes, making the western U.S. look like a pincushion punctured with drilling rigs, and unleashing the hounds of hell (snowmobiles) throughout Yosemite.

Dick Cheney -- truly an execrable almost-human being.

John Ashcroft, Where Are You?

Bald eagle soars off threatened-species list, cockfighting banned Two momentous avian occasions occurred this week: on Wednesday, the Louisiana legislature banned cockfighting, making it the last state in the U.S. to do so. And yesterday, federal officials confirmed the removal of Endangered Species Act protections for the iconic bald eagle. First, the cocks: by a […]

Turned Offset

Leading banks suggest regulation of carbon-offset market Not long ago, the phrase “carbon offset” was a kind of magic. Investing in far-off green projects, the thinking went, made up for emissions at the source. Poof! But complications arose, and now a group of more than 10 major banks wants to move toward regulating the market […]

Citgo Boom

Jury finds Citgo guilty of criminal Clean Air Act charges In a legal first, oil refiner Citgo has been found guilty of criminal charges under the Clean Air Act. The case — involving two open-air storage tanks in Corpus Christi, Texas, that released the carcinogen benzene into the air — marks the first time criminal […]

House Party

U.S. House works on energy bill, passes Interior appropriations bill The House of Representatives is gettin’ jiggy with eco-legislation this week. On Wednesday, it passed a bill declaring that — gasp! — global warming is a “reality,” and mandated funding for climate research. The House hopes to pass comprehensive energy legislation by July 4; proposals […]

Voters like it, but how to do it well?

There’s a big problem facing climate and energy advocates, one they seem to be more or less shutting their eyes to at the moment, hoping it will go away: regulations capping carbon and mandating emissions cuts are likely to raise energy prices for consumers in the short term. This is a problem because polls and […]

So much good stuff, so little time to blather about it

Dear readers, as of tomorrow, I’m on vacation, visiting my ancestral homeland (the American South), not to return until July 9. My plan is to test physiological limits: just how much sleeping can one person do in nine days? There were about a gazillion things I wanted to write about before leaving, but obviously coal […]

A guest column from K.C. Golden

This is a guest column from KC Golden, Policy Director for Climate Solutions, a Northwest-based nonprofit focused on tackling global warming (though not yet tackling its own website’s frames-based layout, which was awful in 1998 and still is … but I digress). It originally ran in Methow Valley News. —– These are the early days […]

A guide to grilling without red meat

As July 4th approaches, it’s time to prepare for picnics and BBQs — and, if you’re eating less and less red meat these days, you’re probably devising alternative strategies for these occasions. There are two main approaches to dealing with this situation: substituting other foods in place of red meat, or bumping dishes that used […]