Edwards Unveils "Green Collar" Jobs Plan

[JohnLocke]

Edwards Unveils "Green Collar" Jobs Plan
By Amy Lorentzen--Associated Press
Friday, July 13, 2007
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HUMBOLDT, Iowa - Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards on Friday unveiled a plan to help train 150,000 American workers each year in "green collar" jobs, allowing them to reap the benefits of the nation's growing energy economy.

Edwards, speaking to about 200 people at a restaurant in Humboldt in northern Iowa, said the country must reform its use of energy and end its addiction to foreign oil. As part of the process, he said workers should be trained for new job opportunities in the growing energy industry.
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Edwards, a former U.S. senator from North Carolina, pointed to a need for skilled workers in research and development of renewable energy, energy efficiency and carbon emissions control.

"We can put some of those jobs into places they are needed so badly," he said. "We've got to make sure that our workers are trained to do them."

His proposals for investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency technology, he said, would create over one million jobs around the nation. Those plans include training and placing 150,000 green collar workers, and creating 50,000 government-subsidized jobs to help hard-to-hire workers learn new skills related to the energy sector.

Edwards said those goals meld with his plans to deal with climate change. If elected, he has proposed capping global warming pollution and reducing it by 80 percent by 2050. His initiatives would include selling carbon pollution permits to build a fund that would help family farms capture some of the benefits of the growing energy economy.

"I think this issue of global warming is a crisis," he said. "It's a very serious issue that America has got to be leading on."

The plan Edwards announced on Friday would also:

--Encourage partnerships between states, businesses, labor unions, community groups and educators to train workers in energy sector jobs.
--Provide funding for community colleges that partner with companies to develop job training programs in the energy industry.
--Create Green Career Academies to help high school students prepare for college and energy sector jobs.

During the town-hall style meeting, he related America's current energy policies to problems with extremist governments in the Middle East, saying that because of the country's addiction to oil, "We empower them, we drive up demand, we drive up the prices."

If America broke its addiction, he said, it would have the power to transform that area of the world.

"All of a sudden these bad leaders and bad governments have got to change to survive," he said. "They are going to have to educate their kids and reform their economy."
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Read the rest http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/13/ap3912911.html">here.