SAN FRANCISCO -- The Apollo Alliance announced more than 150 businesses across the country have endorsed Sen. Sherrod Brown’s “Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology (IMPACT) Act,” a bill to boost domestic clean energy manufacturing and ensure that new clean energy jobs stay in the United States.
Endorsers of the legislation represent a broad spectrum of U.S. industry, including manufacturers, distributors, labor unions, and clean energy producers.
In June, U.S. manufacturers continued to shed jobs at an alarming rate, accounting for nearly 30 percent of overall U.S. job losses. Though the stimulus and renewable energy policies being considered by Congress -- such as a Renewable Energy Standard and a carbon cap -- will generate unprecedented demand for clean energy parts and systems, 70 percent of America’s clean and efficient energy systems are currently produced abroad.
“Without a program to support our own domestic manufacturers, policies that create new demand for clean energy will just lead to more imports,” said Phil Angelides, chairman of the Apollo Alliance. “A healthy manufacturing sector is the key to middle class growth in this country. The IMPACT Act will help millions of Americans find work in well-paying clean energy jobs and greatly reduce our dependence on other nations to meet our energy needs.”
“We can revive American manufacturing through investment in clean energy,” said Senator Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, one of several states that have been hard-hit by the decline of the manufacturing sector. “This bill will help our manufacturers retool, put our auto suppliers back to work, and produce clean energy technologies.”
The IMPACT Act would provide significant resources for small and medium-sized manufacturers through a 2-year, $30 billion manufacturing revolving loan fund, which will provide much needed liquidity for domestic firms to become more energy efficient, retool facilities, and retrain workers to produce clean energy products.
The Apollo Alliance estimates that the IMPACT Act will generate more than $100 billion in revenue for clean energy businesses while creating 680,000 direct manufacturing jobs and nearly 2 million indirect jobs over five years.
The IMPACT Act would also provide the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), a division of the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, with $1.5 billion in federal funds over five years to help manufacturers access clean energy markets and adopt innovative, energy-efficient manufacturing technologies.
