The Apollo Alliance for Good Jobs and Clean Energy

[pinto]

This is worth a good look...

http://www.apolloalliance.org/

The Apollo Alliance provides a message of optimism and hope, framed around rejuvenating our nation’s economy by creating the next generation of American industrial jobs and treating clean energy as an economic and security mandate to rebuild America. America needs to hope again, to dream again, to think big, and to be called to the best of our potential by tapping the optimism and can-do spirit that is embedded in our nation’s history.

In 1961, John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to send a man to the moon and return him safely home again within the decade. It was an audacious dare. The technology did not yet exist, but he marshaled the resources of a nation -- focusing public investment, research, science and technology education, worker training, and America’s industrial might on a common purpose. It was leadership toward a common positive goal and it worked. In less than eight years Neil Armstrong placed the first human footprint on the lunar surface, and President Kennedy to this day remains honored for his vision and as a leader of courage.

Now America has an Apollo project for the 21st century. Today the stakes are much, much higher. We face an economy hemorrhaging its highest paying and most productive jobs, cities falling apart with over a trillion dollars in unmet public investment in crumbling schools, transportation, and infrastructure. The middle class is increasingly insecure as career ladders are broken and not replaced in new service sector jobs. And on a global scale we face never before seen environmental disruption, rising social inequity, and the emergence of fundamentalist anger that threatens our very security. We need new leaders of vision, and a new unifying call to action.

The Apollo Alliance is a joint project of the Institute for America's Future and the Center on Wisconsin Strategy. The Apollo Alliance is a 501-c3 organization.

Apollo Alliance National Steering Committee:

Ruben Aronin, Global Green USA
Andrew Beebe, Energy Innovations
Robert L. Borosage, Institute for America’s Future
Dan Carol, CTSG
Maggie Fox, Sierra Club
Bracken Hendricks, Apollo Alliance
Van Jones, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Mindy Lubber, CERES
Jeff Rickert, Apollo Alliance
Mark Ritchie, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Joel Rogers, Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) *
Marco Trbovich, United Steelworkers of America (USWA)

* Designates Chair of the National Steering Committee

National Advisory Board:

Phil Angelides, California State Treasurer
President Andrew Beebe, Energy Innovations, An Idea Lab Company
Angela Glover Blackwell, Policy Link
Chairman Julian Bond, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
President Thomas Buffenbarger, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
Senator Maria Cantwell, MS Congress (D-WA) *
Henry Cisneros, former Mayor of San Antonio, Texas
President Leo W. Gerard, The United Steel Workers of America *
Jan Hartke, Executive Director, EarthVoice
Vice President Gerry Hudson, SEIU Local 1199
Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA)
Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., US Congress (D-IL) *
Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Systems and Mitchell Kapor Foundation
Bill Lucy, Secretary/Treasurer, AFSCME
William Lynch
William McDonough, Architect, Author, Educator
Kathleen A. McGinty, Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Energy
President Terence M. O’Sullivan, Laborers’ International Union of North America
Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club *
Art Pulaski, Secretary-Treasurer, California Labor Federation
Governor Ed Rendell, Pennsylvania
Anthony Thigpenn, Executive Director AGENDA
President Danny Thompson, Nevada Labor Federation

* Designates Co-Chair of the National Advisory Board

The Apollo Alliance has been endorsed by the following labor unions:

AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council (IUC)
AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Dept
National Heavy and Highway Alliance
Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU)
American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Intl. Union (BCTGM)
Boilermakers Union (IBB)
California Labor Federation
Graphic Communications Industrial Union (GCIU)
Hawaii AFL-CIO
Illinois AFL-CIO
Indiana AFL-CIO
International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM)
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)
International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)
International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE-CWA)
King County Labor Council, AFL-CIO
Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA)
Metropolitan Detroit, AFL-CIO
Michigan AFL-CIO
Minnesota AFL-CIO
Oregon AFL-CIO
Paper and Allied Chemical Employees (PACE)
Pennsylvania AFL-CIO
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Sheet Metal Workers International Association (SMWIA)
Transportation Workers Union (TWU)
United Automobile and Aerospace Workers (UAW)
United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW)
United Mine Workers of America (UMWA)
UNITE!
United Steel Workers of America (USWA)
Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO
Wisconsin AFL-CIO

We have been endorsed by the following environmental organizations:

Center for Environmental Citizenship
Center for Environmental Health
Ceres
Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Conventions
The Detroit Project
Environment 2004
Environmental Law and Policy Center
EarthVoice
Greenpeace USA
Healthy School Network
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
League of Conservation Voters
National Wildlife Federation
Rainforest Action Network
Republicans for Environmental Protection
The Sierra Club
The Sierra Student Coalition
South Carolina Coastal Conservation League
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)

http://www.apolloalliance.org/about_the_alliance/

[NMDemDist2]

1. my husband has been saying this for years

glad the science guys are running with it

[NNadir]

9. The list of participants is notably short on scientists.

The Apollo/Manhattan Project/so on and so forth model for innovation is a poor one in general. Those projects which so succeeded (Manhattan and Apollo) were engineering projects more than they were discovery projects. It is a mistake to assume that any problem can be solved simply by throwing research money at it. There is, as I see it, not one credible scientific organization involved in this latest "Apollo" project.

Scientists for the most part fully understand energy. There not really all that much to discover of immediate importance on the subject. When I look at this list of participants I do not see any organization that understands the energy issue, although I do see some organizations that are known to make essentially illiterate pronouncements on the subject of energy, about which they know nothing or very little. I suspect that much of the effort here is to pay ritual obeisance to the faith based idea that risk free energy is possible. Since this is the goal, it is most likely a huge waste of time and resources. Risk free energy will never exist. We can lower risks considerably from the present condition - and the means of doing so are well understood - but they depend on a public that has abandoned mysticism and wishful thinking.

Either we will run with what we know now, or we will die. This is simple. No amount of prayer can change this fact.

[OneBlueSky]

2. funding from the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Financial . . .

Services troubles me a bit . . . otherwise looks like an interesting and much-needed initiative . . . will look deeper as time permits . . .

[slor]

3. Why Kerry did not speak about his...

support for this more, I will never understand.

[rfkrfk]

4. this is a scam

the 'energy sector' is thoroughly researched

also, is there some chance the 'non-US' part of the world
could do something, here?

[Dead_Parrot]

5. Please explain:

a) How this is a scam,
b) WTF "the 'energy sector' is thoroughly researched" means, and
c) what part you expect the rest of the world to play in the development of Wisconsin.

[rfkrfk]

6. response

a. Apollo project for the 1st century, plus gimme 300 billion. --> scam

b. the 'energy sector' has been studied so long, that real breakthrus
are rare, so the effort become applying known ideas,,,
gov't money not needed to do that

c. I am only against this, if they ask Washington for the money.
If they ask for money from a certain group of 49 states, and/or
other countries, and/or private funds, that would be great.

[pinto]

7. Yes, the ten year investment would be federally financed and accompanied

by stronger regulatory protections to help ensure real world results. Subsidies/incentives would be across the spectrum of fuels, energy production, building trades, manufacturing, commercial/consumer recycling, transportation, etc.

William Greider has a good overview of the program and some specific examples of how states (Maine, Washington, California among others) are melding environmental goals with economic goals in the Jan. 2 issue of The Nation.

<snip>

The Apollo Alliance offers one positive model for reshaping the future. It started from the premise that American politics will not undertake a serious agenda on global warming and alternative energy sources until labor groups and environmentalists come together on the objective. "When Apollo started, political progress on energy was mired in the job-vs-environment debate," say Jeff Rickert, Apollo's acting director. "In order to break that deadlock, we proposed a new way of thinking - a plan that removed the wedge between environmentalists and labor unions by focusing on the job-creating aspects of a clean-energy investment policy."

<end snip>

[rfkrfk]

8. these are state issues, Washington --> stay out.

nice to see Maine, California, etc,
taking their rightful role.

[pinto]

10. States are taking the lead - and that makes sense - but at some point,

I think a national goal is a national responsibility as well. Given our current federal budget priorities, I don't think 30 billion in incentives/subsidies a year is an unreasonable federal investment, especially if they are accompanied by clear federal standards for performance - return on investment - economically as well as environmentally.

The projects mentioned in the Nation article point to the buy-in from labor and environmental groups, and their ability to work with the states politically, in making environmental legislation feasible. Washington State, for example, enacted a green building code that also gave preference for regionally produced lumber - and won the backing of local carpenter and machinists unions as well as environmental groups.

The Apollo Alliance maintains that state models can be built on at the federal level, especially when garnering political support for legislation that impacts national and multi national corporations.

It's an ambitious set of goals, admittedly, but I'd rather see this kind of approach discussed at the federal level than the Republican "Clear Skies" smokescreen we've had to date.