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According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, buildings in the U.S. account for 12% of total national fresh water consumption. Reducing the need for water reduces stress on the local water infrastructure and leaves reservoirs and aquatic ecosystems intact. Renewable Energy Trust.
The “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009” was signed into law by President Barack Obama on February 17, and includes a $500 million appropriation to fund the Green Jobs Act contained within the “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.” This appropriation is significantly higher than the $125 million authorized in 2007. The Green Jobs Act’s statutory language only allows organizations associated with labor unions to apply for these grants. It is vital that mandatory, union-only apprenticeship guidelines are not made a condition for eligibility to receive federal grant money. Merit shop contractors should not be excluded from projects that are made possible by this federal funding. ABC Government Affairs will continue its efforts to ensure that these funds are available to firms that employ the 86 percent of workers that choose not to join a union.
In December 2007, President Bush signed into law the “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007” (H.R. 6), Public Law No: 110-140. Title X of this legislation made $125 million available to invest in a renewable energy worker training program. The Green Jobs Act’s statutory language only allows organizations associated with labor unions to apply for these grants.
Title X will significantly reduce the role of America’s business community in the training of workers. This provision greatly expands government bureaucracy and needlessly benefits labor unions at the expense of open competition by allowing unions to assume a major role through legislated training partnerships and in mandated consultation of potential grant proposals. ABC fears these union-only training funds will be used by organized labor to attach union apprenticeship requirements to green projects in order to limit the ability of merit shop contractors to compete for these projects. These exclusionary limitations subject green projects to the inefficiency and waste that comes with union-only construction.
Merit shop contractors have been successfully completing green projects for more than 15 years. With more and more projects going green, union-only apprenticeship requirements exclude 86 percent of the private construction industry, the workforce of merit shop contractors, from working on a growing segment of future construction.
ABC Applauds Bill to Expand Green Job Training Program to Merit Shop Workers(4/22/09)
ABC Testimony - Health Education & Labor Pensions committee (HELP) hearing on "Green Skills Training for Workers" (4/21/09)ABC Letter to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Workforce Protections (3/31/09)ABC Green Jobs Position Paper
ABC Testimony - Enviroment & Public Works committee hearing on " Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings" (4/22/09)