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The Associated PressVice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., right, was joined by Labor Secretary-Designate Hilda Solis, second right, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, among others, at a meeting of the Obama administration’s Middle Class Task Force in Philadelphia on Friday. Post updated at 4:37 p.m.
At an event to promote green jobs for the middle class today in Philadelphia, Vice President Joe Biden hailed the arrival of many thousands of jobs in the new energy economy, which he described as “good, high-paying jobs, the vast majority of which are not exportable.”
Mr. Biden brought along some high-profile guests. Several Cabinet secretaries – Steven Chu from the Department of Energy, as well as the secretaries of agriculture, labor, housing and urban development and education – watched and listened.
UPDATE: Toward the end of the meeting today, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said he might appoint an “environmental czar” to his department to help make sure schools become more energy efficient.
But it was Van Jones, a green-jobs activist and one of the panelists, who brought down the house.
“There should be a moral principle where they say, ‘Let’s green the ghetto first,’” said Mr. Jones, to strong applause. He added that young people should be encouraged to “put down those handguns and pick up those caulking guns.”
Responding to a point from Mr. Chu about the need to make sure that the giant amount of money for tasks like retrofitting homes would be spent wisely (something I wrote about in Thursday’s paper), Mr. Jones urged a high standard for job training programs.
“The best-trained workers in this area are in the unions, and that’s the bottom line,” he said, citing the expertise of boilermakers and construction workers.
Leo Gerard, the international president of the steelworkers union, emphasized the need to keep green jobs in America. “I think it would be a tragedy,” Mr. Gerard said, “if we move to the green economy with imported parts.”
From: http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/biden-luminaries-promote-green-jobs/
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