President Joe Biden couldn’t have said it any more plainly when he said last week in Milwaukee, “When I think climate, I think jobs.”
He was speaking the day before the one-year anniversary of the historic clean energy and jobs package that he and Congress agreed on — the third major economic push the federal government has made since 2021, along with earlier boosts for infrastructure and technology.
So it’s a good moment to check the scorecard for what is officially called the Inflation Reduction Act. To date, Americans are winning.
More than 190 clean energy projects across 41 states have been announced in the last year, according to the group Climate Power. Those projects are adding more than 140,000 jobs in those states.
While no Republicans in Congress voted for the $350 billion clean energy package, those jobs are being spread across red and blue states. In the 2020 election, the president lost five of the top 10 states in terms of new jobs, and five of the 10 states with the most projects announced since last year.
Just as importantly, it appears we’re growing those jobs in communities where they are needed most. The Treasury Department found that two-thirds of the projects involving clean energy, electric vehicles or batteries are in counties with above-average poverty rates. The projects are going to places with low college graduation rates, low weekly wages, and high unemployment, federal officials reported.
Stoking fear to divide people
Those are the same places that far too often must bear far more than their share of pollution and the effects of climate change. Throughout our nation’s history, the least powerful people have had to make unfair choices because they needed jobs, whether strip-mining mountains they love or living in “cancer alleys” created by the toxic discharge of the plants where they work.
For the rest of us, the benefit isn’t just environmental, it’s economic as well. As the Treasury Department noted, the best way to grow U.S. productivity overall is to increase it in these places that have the most growth potential.
But these wins haven’t convinced the opponents on Capitol Hill who didn’t support the plan in the first place. While they are happy to celebrate the clean energy jobs sprouting in their states, they continue to work against limits on carbon pollution, tax credits to encourage people and businesses to buy electric vehicles and more.
It’s increasingly clear that Americans no longer must make a false choice between a vibrant economy and a safe, livable planet. There are more good jobs in nearly every state, every day, that are tied to clean companies.
The protectors of an unsustainable status quo that relies on dirty fuels and toxic waste want to fool the public into believing that’s not a certainty. But it’s an old play, stoking fear to try to divide people enough to keep them from joining together in their own best interest.
We can let them know that we won’t be fooled that way. We can read the score.
Ben Jealous is executive director of the Sierra Club and a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania.
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