The United States is having the wrong public debate about global warming. We are asking important questions about pollution caps and timetables, carbon markets and allocations, but we have lost sight of our principal objective: building a robust and prosperous clean energy economy. This is a fundamentally affirmative agenda, rather than a restrictive one. Moving beyond pollution from fossil fuels will involve exciting work, new opportunities, new products and innovation, and stronger communities. Our current national discussion about constraints, limits, and the costs of transition misses the real excitement in this proposition. It is as if, on the cusp of an Internet and telecommunications revolution, debate centered only on the cost of fiber optic cable. We are missing the big picture here.

Let’s be clear: Solving global warming means investment. Retooling the energy systems that fuel our economy will involve rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure. We will create millions of middle-class jobs along the way, revitalize our manufacturing sector, increase American competitiveness, reduce our dependence on oil, and boost technological innovation. These investments in the foundation of our economy can also provide an opportunity for more broadly shared prosperity through better training, stronger local economies, and new career ladders into the middle class. Reducing greenhouse gas pollution is critical to solving global warming, but it is only one part of the work ahead. Building a robust economy that grows more vibrant as we move beyond the Carbon Age is the greater and more inspiring challenge.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avert dangerous global warming is an environmental challenge, but it is also an economic, national security, societal, and moral imperative. The “cap and trade” provisions, which will set limits on pollution and create a market for emissions reductions that will ultimately drive down the cost of renewable energy and fuel, represent a very important first step and a major component in the mix of policies that will help build the coming low-carbon economy. But limiting emissions and establishing a price on pollution is not the goal in itself, and we will fall short if that is all we set out to do. Rather, cap and trade is one key step to reach the broader goal of catalyzing the transformation to an efficient and sustainable low-carbon economy. With unemployment at 9.5 percent, and oil and energy price volatility driving businesses into the ground, we cannot afford to wait any longer. It is time for a legislative debate over a comprehensive clean-energy investment plan. We need far more than cap and trade alone.

Importantly, many elements of this positive clean-energy investment framework are already codified within existing legislation such as the American Clean Energy and Security Act, passed by House of Representatives earlier this year. But with all the attention given to limiting carbon, too little attention has been placed on what will replace it. These critical pieces of America’s clean-energy strategy should be elevated in the policy agenda and political debate as we move forward into the Senate, and used to help move legislation forward that advances a proactive investment and economic revitalization strategy for the nation.

Read the Center for American Progress report, The Clean-Energy Investment Agenda.

In the early hours of September 10th, the New York State Senate passed a major bill championed by the Working Families Party to make energy efficiency upgrades to one million homes and businesses over the next five years. The Green Jobs-Green New York Act will leverage private investment and Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative funds to make the upgrades. The bill passed the Assembly unanimously in June and now awaits the Governor’s expected signature. The program created by this bill will create an estimated 14,000 living wage jobs. The key innovation is a revolving capital fund, which would leverage private investment in energy efficient to massively increase the use of existing technology.

Here’s how it will work:

— State-certified contractors would perform free or low-cost energy audits for homeowners, looking for repairs and upgrades (air sealing, insulation, new boilers, etc.) that can pay for themselves through energy savings in an 8 – 10 year window.

– The work is paid for by the Green New York fund, and homeowners pay the fund over time back out of a portion of their energy savings. They pocket the rest, plus get their homes repaired.

Compare this to the current situation:

— A homeowner has to independently do the research to find a contractor they trust to perform an energy audit, pay for it themselves, and then pay the upfront costs of the repair — without support from lenders or energy providers.

For a cold, old state like New York, the number of existing residential and commercial buildings that can be upgraded is huge — we estimate the program could reach one in seven existing homes. It’s a great example of how market failure can be solved through progressive policy.

And none of it would have been possible without the policy work done by the Center for American Progress along with the Center for Working Families.

Anyway, Jones: He has, in recent years, done some valuable work trying to steer green jobs into poor communities…but there is a bright line in American political life: Self-proclaimed “communists” need not apply. Communism is too odious and foolish a philosophy for anyone reasonable to believe in, or even to use as red-flag hyperbole, as Jones did after the Rodney King riots of the early 1990s, when he said that he’d been a [black] nationalist, but was now a communist. It’s sort of like a Republican President appointing someone who had said, “I used to be a white supremacist, but now I’m a Nazi.” So, good riddance. The work of this presidency is too important to be side-tracked by a too-angry blowhard spouting foolish radicalism.

In the past decade, Van Jones has been at the vanguard of a green capitalism that combines progressive and conservative ideals, “focusing on job, wealth and health creation” in poor and minority communities while healing the planet. His work has helped establish the Oakland Green Jobs Corps, the Green Jobs Act, and community partnerships for job training and retrofit programs in cities across the nation.

Before becoming a leading green capitalist, Jones was a progressive leader in the Bay Area. The “communist” smear hinges on a 2005 interview with the East Bay Express, in which Jones described how he had “renounced” his radicalist politics of the 1990s, when he participated in STORM, a utopian, anti-racist peace collective in Berkeley, CA that drew from Marxist teachings. Jones was radicalized by the 1992 Rodney King trial, in which four LAPD officers were acquitted of police brutality although their beating of Rodney King was caught on videotape. While acting as a legal observer for a non-violent rally in San Francisco protesting the trial and its aftermath, Jones was caught in a mass arrest for which the city later apologized.

Klein’s comparison of Jones to a “Nazi” “white supremacist” is both repugnant and ironic, considering Jones’s record of fighting racism and embracing compassion for all people. Following the Rodney King verdict, Jones worked effectively against police brutality, establishing first the Bay Area PoliceWatch and then the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. The Ella Baker Center successfully campaigned against San Francisco police officer Marc Andaya, who led a team of cops in beating Aaron Williams, “emptying three cans of pepper spray into his face, and hogtying him in an unventilated police van where he died.” With its “Books Not Bars” campaign, the Center also stopped the construction of the Alameda County “Super Jail for Kids” in 2001.

Klein — a compelling writer who has argued for legalizing marijuana, a war crimes tribunal for the Bush administration, and the same green-jobs vision as Van Jones — should be the last person to promote a McCarthyite purge of “left-extremists” from the Obama administration.

Our young white males are suffering in this society, profoundly. Profoundly. And no one is saying a word about it. We’ll criminalize the black student, black child, criminalize the Latino child, we have this whole discussion about whether they are animals or they not animals, should we abuse them should we help them, blah blah blah. You’ve never seen a Columbine done by a black child. Never. They always say, “We can’t believe it happened here. We can’t believe it’s these suburban white kids.” It’s only them! Now, a black kid might shoot another black kid. He’s not going to shoot up the whole school! “My cousin’s up in here, I’m not going to shoot the whole school then, I might hit my cousin! I’m gonna shoot you though!”

But these young white men will be in so much pain, and so isolated, so alienated they’ll shoot up the entire school. Where is the concern, where is the love, where is the compassion for these young men?

Watch it:

Van Jones “mocks Columbine,” RedState.com claims, even as they admit “his statement is true as far as it goes.” “Only ‘Suburban White Kids’ Shoot Up Schools,” blares the Drudge Report. But Van Jones’ speech is clearly a desperate plea for compassion and healing — to recognize that though our criminal justice system and society still treat youths differently based on race and class, we should do better no matter what color — black, brown or white.

Van Jones continues:

Where is concern, where is the love, where is the compassion for these young men? And it is doubly twisted, because if there’s anything that you’re doing that is wrong, we want to hurt you, we want to punish you, we’re not going to help you, we’re not going to love you. And so rather than punish you and attack you and jump on you like we do the black kids, we’ll just ignore you and we’ll just neglect you.

We have got to begin to look at this idea of criminality, of evil, of wrongdoing, of mistakes as being a universal condition, requiring a universally loving response and a universally embracing response — so that our society in trying to confront evil at any level does not in fact become evil.

It is just as evil, in my view — to attack these young black and brown men — it is just as evil to neglect and to ignore these young white men, who, as best I can tell, have very little now in the way of loving, affirmative male leadership, that can put an arm around, wipe away a tear, and show a kind of masculinity that is not brittle or mean-spirited. And that I think is the problem that gets masked over by calling any community evil.

Now, according to right-wing bloggers, it is Van Jones who is “evil.”

Speaking at the National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 in Las Vegas this August, Van Jones argued that “for all of the battleground politics that’s going on,” energy policy should be “the one place that should be a safe harbor for all of us.” Van Jones praised the “bipartisanship” of Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, who as a representative from Los Angeles succeeded in getting “the first president ever to sign into law a green jobs act, President George W. Bush.” He recognized that the summit participants came to find a “healing for our politics” in a “common ground agenda”:

Many of you have taken chances to start companies, you’ve written books, you’ve been grassroots champions for the change that we need. And I think you’re seeking not just a healing for our economy or a healing for our planet, but a healing for our politics. And I want to acknowledge that many of us are here because we are seeking something deeper. This is the common ground agenda. It should be the common ground agenda. We should be able to come together as a country on this one. Finally.

Watch it:

Jones then explained that “the values that underlie this clean energy conversation” are “the common ground values of America.” Underlying the call for clean energy is the value that “clean air is better than dirty air for the health of our children.” Underlying the call for energy efficiency is that value that treating our country’s resources “with wisdom and respect is more important than wasting them.” And “if we have the opportunity to fight both poverty and pollution by putting people to work in these new industries, we would be wise as a country to do that.”

To extended applause, Van Jones explained that the Obama administration has committed $5 billion to improving the energy efficiency of low-income households because the same investment “that cut unemployment and cut an energy bill and cuts greenhouse gases is also going to cut asthma, and take asthma inhalers out of little girls’ and boys’ pockets.”

Jones discussed in further detail how President Obama’s clean energy agenda tears down traditional ideological divides by “asking questions progressives like” but “giving answers that conservatives should like”:

We’re asking questions progressives like but we’re giving answers that conservatives should like. We’re asking questions about how to move the needle on poverty and pollution and how we create more economic opportunity especially for people in the lower part of our economy. But the answers are answers that conservatives should like. We’re not talking about expanding welfare, we’re talking about expanding work. We’re not talking about expanding entitlements, we’re talking about expanding enterprise and investments. We’re not talking about redistributing existing wealth, we’re talking about reinventing an existing sector, and creating new wealth by unleashing innovation and entrepeneurship. This should be common ground. We should be able to stand together and be one country on this.

Jones concluded by again making the call for us to “be one country” and connect “the people that most need work” to the “work that most needs to be done”:

There is so much work that needs to be done in this country to retrofit America, to cut these energy bills. And there are so many people who need work. This is our opportunity as a country — and it comes around very rarely — to take the people that most need work, and connect them to the work that most needs to be done, to fight pollution and poverty at the same time, and be one country. Let’s be one country.

During the applause at the conclusion of Jones’s speech, prominent Republican oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens — who in 2004 funded the Swift Boat attacks on Sen. John Kerry — turned to Jones and shook his hand.

Transcript:

First of all, it’s good to be here. I want to honor my friend and hero Vice President Gore. It was a brilliant summation, graceful, et cetera.

I also want to honor Senator Reid, who has been such a huge and steadfast champion on this. You haven’t gotten the credit, so I’ll put it on the table. Not only is Las Vegas going to be a leader in generating energy, but there’s also going to be a $5.7 million smart grid demonstration project so we can use that energy better and smarter here. Congratulations on that. It’s a big deal for the whole country. [APPLAUSE]

Senator Wirth and Senator Cantwell, I thank you also for your leadership and effectiveness on these very very important issues.

I also want to thank John Podesta. He sicced — this is a very tough set of problems — he sicced two of the best minds in the country on it, in Bracken Hendricks and in Benjamin Goldstein. This report, I think, is very challenging and visionary in pushing us to think even bigger and bolder. I thank you for that.

I also thank Secretary Chu for making energy efficiency cool again. We get a chance to quote you on that “fruit on the ground” thing four or five times a day. So thank you for saying it’s the “fruit on the ground.”

And also, I’m looking forward to hearing the comments of Secretary of may Labor Hilda Solis, the champion, which I think people sometimes forget, of the first ever federal legislation ever to codify the concept of green jobs, the Green Jobs Act. Not only she able to get it through Congress, she was able to get the first president ever to sign into law a green jobs act, President George W. Bush. So I give you credit for that, for being able to be a leader in bipartisanship and bringing us forward together. [APPLAUSE]

There’s genius around this table.

There’s also genius around this room. I want to acknowledge that there are so many people here who are listening who could easily come up here and talk, and teach us a great deal. I think that you are here, many of you — you wake up in the morning, this issue’s the first thing on your mind. Many of you have taken chances to start companies, you’ve written books, you’ve been grassroots champions for the change that we need.

And I think you’re seeking not just a healing for our economy or a healing for our planet, but a healing for our politics. And I want to acknowledge that many of us are here because we are seeking something deeper. This is the common ground agenda. It should be the common ground agenda. We should be able to come together as a country on this one. Finally. [APPLAUSE]

The reason for that is the values that underlie this clean energy conversation, which we don’t speak to directly enough, are the common ground values of America. Clean air is better than dirty air for the health of our children. That’s common ground. That’s why we need clean energy.

We have been blessed in this country with so many resources. Conserving them, saving them, treating them with wisdom and respect is more important than wasting them. That’s why energy efficiency is so important.

And if we have the opportunity to fight both poverty and pollution by putting people to work in these new industries, we would be wise as a country to do that. That is common ground. That is common ground.

And that is why this administration is so committed to energy efficiency. We think that this is the most fiscally conservative thing that we can do with the federal dollars.

Why do I say that?

I say that because the money that we invest in energy efficiency — these are humble, hard-working dollars. They work double time, triple time, quadruple time. If you take a worker, someone who right now needs work, someone who’s sitting on the bench but has skills or the desire to learn skills, And you give that person an opportunity to stand up and to be an energy efficiency specialist and walk across the street, you put a dollar in that person’s hand. That dollar just cut unemployment. But when she walks across the street and begins to blow in that clean, non-toxic insulation. When she begins to replace those windows and doors. When she begins to do the work of improving and upgrading our homes. That same dollar that cut unemployment is also going to cut somebody’s home energy bill.

And it gets better.

That same dollar’s also going to cut pollution. Somewhere there’s often a coal-powered plant that’s working overtime because our homes are so leaky and waste so much energy. But if we can cut that energy bill by 30 percent, we can cut that pollution by 30 percent. That cuts not just greenhouse gas emissions, that cuts asthma. That some dollar that cut unemployment and cut an energy bill and cuts greenhouse gases is also going to cut asthma, and take asthma inhalers out of little girls’ and boys’ pockets. That’s the kind of double, triple, quadruple benefit that we’re talking about. That’s common ground. [APPLAUSE]

And I think it’s important that we recognize that for all of the battleground politics that’s going on, this is the one place that should be a safe harbor for all of us. We should be able to stand together.

We’re asking questions progressives like but we’re giving answers that conservatives should like. We’re asking questions about how to move the needle on poverty and pollution and how we create more economic opportunity especially for people in the lower part of our economy. But the answers are answers that conservatives should like. We’re not talking about expanding welfare, we’re talking about expanding work. We’re not talking about expanding entitlements, we’re talking about expanding enterprise and investments. We’re not talking about redistributing existing wealth, we’re talking about reinventing an existing sector, and creating new wealth by unleashing innovation and entrepeneurship. This should be common ground. We should be able to stand together and be one country on this. And that’s why the administration has been so committed.

That’s why we have $5 billion on the table, up from 200 million last year in 2008. Five billion dollars on the table this year to cut energy bills for low-income people by unleashing a tidal wave of energy efficiency workers. That’s why GSA has literally billions of dollars to retrofit our government buildings. That is why HUD has billions of dollars in our recovery package to cut energy costs for public housing. That is why you see with our Recovery Through Retrofit program –which the Vice President asked us to start — 12, 13 different agencies and departments standing together for the first time coming up with new ways forward. I mean Treasury. I mean Commerce. I mean the Small Business Administration. Because we know, as Secretary Chu has said so many times, because this is the fruit on the ground.

There is so much work that needs to be done in this country to retrofit America, to cut these energy bills. And there are so many people who need work. This is our opportunity as a country — and it comes around very rarely — to take the people that most need work, and connect them to the work that most needs to be done, to fight pollution and poverty at the same time, and be one country. Let’s be one country. Thank you very much. [APPLAUSE]

I know there are good decent people, left and right, Democrats and Republicans that watch this program! How much more evidence do you need that we have radicals in the White House? Oh, we haven’t even begun. If you think you need more — We need to at least start having the necessary conversation of: Do we really want Communists in the United States government as special advisors to the president? To be honest with ya, and maybe it’s just me, I don’t even want Communists having lunch with our president. When Putin was having an hour with the president, I know he had to do it, but I wasn’t comfortable with it! Barack Obama did not campaign on openly changing the whole system.

Watch it:

In fact, Obama did campaign openly on a message of change. And hope.

Evidently, Beck is attacking Van Jones to divert attention from his accusations that President Obama is a “racist” who “hates white people.” A successful boycott by Color of Change, an organization co-founded by Van Jones in 2005 but with which he has had no active involvement since 2007, has led to 57 advertisers abandoning Beck’s show.

The analysis by the authors from King Juan Carlos University represents a significant divergence from traditional methodologies used to estimate employment impacts from renewable energy. In fact, the methodology does not reflect an employment impact analysis. Accordingly, the primary conclusion made by the authors – policy support of renewable energy results in net jobs losses – is not supported by their work.

NREL reveals that what Republicans have called a “50-page empirical study” could have been written by ten-year-olds. All the study does is calculate two ratios of Spanish economic figures — renewable subsidies vs. private capital and subsidies vs. average productivity — and then draw extravagant conclusions not only about the Spanish economy, but project them onto the United States. Here are a few of the fundamental limitations, technical errors, and false assumptions drawn from NREL’s takedown of Calzada’s work of pseudo-economics:

The metrics used in the Spanish study are not jobs impact estimates. The primary conclusion of the report is that the Spanish economy has experienced job loss as a result of its RE installations. However, comparing the RE subsidy per job with the Spanish economy’s average capital per job and average productivity per job is not a measure of job loss.

The report lacks transparency and supporting statistics. It is striking that the authors’ calculations with two very different economic metrics generate the same result. The authors claim this increases their confidence in their result. However, because there is no statistical analysis, it does not seem reasonable to draw conclusions regarding confidence in either result. The authors also fail to justify their chosen methodology or cite others who have applied a similar methodology.

The authors assume that a dollar spent by the government is less efficient than a dollar spent by private industry and that it crowds out private investment. Government spending may be more or less efficient than private investment. To the extent that government spending is a correction for market failures (e.g., existing fossil fuel subsidies, environmental externalities), it is less likely to represent an inefficient allocation of resources. Furthermore, there is no justification given for the assumption that government spending (e.g., tax credits or subsidies) would force out private investment. This assumption is fundamental to the conclusion that Spain’s renewable energy policy has resulted in job loss.

Calzada also “fails to account for technology export potential,” “relies on jobs estimates that were developed in 2003 and do not reflect Spain’s RE industries in 2009,” and “relies on jobs as the sole metric to assess the value of renewable energy.” NREL’s Suzanne Tegen, a Ph.D. energy market analyst, and Eric Lantz conclude with a summary of what serious economic analysis of the impact of renewable energy investments has found:

In general, comprehensive analyses show that net employment impacts are sensitive to assumptions regarding future energy prices, strategies for addressing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, and the capacity to export technology. With increased awareness of potential energy price scenarios, recent research has found that it is only when conventional energy prices are forecast to be very low that net employment impacts from RE investments are negative.

In other words, unless you live in a world where global warming and oil spills don’t exist, and fossil fuels remain cheap forever, government investment in renewable energy creates jobs — just what our nation needs now.

(H/T Pete Altman)

EMISSIONS LIMITS: Sens. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) are calling for the legislation to strengthen its 2020 target for greenhouse pollution reductions to 20 percent below 2005 levels, instead of the current 17 percent target. “I like the House bill, don’t get me wrong,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD). “But I think we can do better.” Lautenberg told reporters: “That’s the objective, as far as I’m concerned, because the glide path has to be established that enables us to get to 80 percent in 2050. You can’t get there unless you start aggressively pushing.”

GREEN TRANSPORTATION: Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) is working to strengthen the bill’s funding for green transportation, pushing language that would “devote a guaranteed share of revenues from carbon regulation to transit, bike paths, and other green modes of transport.” The Clean, Low-Emission, Affordable, New Transportation Efficiency Act (S. 575 / H.R. 1329) would auction ten percent of carbon market allowances for clean transit improvement. Senators Arlen Specter (D-PA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Ben Cardin (D-MD) have co-sponsored the legislation.

COAL POLLUTION: Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) is working with Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) to add language to “regulate power plant emissions of mercury, nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide.”

CARBON MARKET REGULATION: Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) have introduced legislation to “prevent Enron-like fraud, manipulation and excessive speculation” in the carbon market that the ACES Act would establish. Boxer has told reporters she intends to include the Feinstein-Snowe language in her legislation.

RENEWABLE STANDARD: In February, Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM) and Mark Udall (D-CO) introduced legislation (S. 433) to set a federal standard of 25% renewable electricity by 2025, much stronger than the House bill. “The bill’s not perfect, but it is a beginning,” Mark Udall recently told reporters. “The Senate now has to work its bill, and there are a number of elements we could put in the Senate bill that would improve the House bill including passing a [stronger] renewable electricity standard for the nation.” Sens. Michael Bennet (D-CO), John Kerry (D-MA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have cosponsored the legislation.

GREEN MANUFACTURING JOBS: Sen. Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology (IMPACT) Act creates a “$30 billion Manufacturing Revolving Loan Fund to help small and medium-sized manufacturers finance retooling, shift design, and improve energy efficiency.” The IMPACT Act has been added to the Senate legislation. Ten Democratic senators, led by Sens. Brown and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), have urged President Obama to ensure the legislation includes “strong provisions to ensure the strength and viability of domestic manufacturing,” including a “border adjustment mechanism” if “other major carbon emitting countries fail to commit to an international agreement requiring commensurate action on climate change.” Brown and Stabenow are supported by Sens. Russ Feingold (D-WI), Carl Levin (D-MI), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Robert Casey (D-PA), Arlen Specter (D-PA), Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Robert Byrd (D-VW), and Al Franken (D-MN).

A number of senators have committed to passing strong climate and clean energy legislation, including Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), who is “optimistic we can turn energy potential into reality and help create new job opportunities at home by producing more clean energy in the United States.” After telling a global warming skeptic that “climate change is very real,” Stabenow was eviscerated by the right wing. Both Brown and Specter have committed to voting against a Republican filibuster of climate legislation — a key move for President Obama’s progressive energy agenda.

After Boxer introduces her draft of the legislation in the beginning of September, the bill must pass out of the Environment and Public Works Committee, which has a strong Democratic majority with many liberal Democrats. “The move on the Senate floor will be rightward,” Sen. Whitehouse noted. “And therefore, we’ve got to do our job to keep as many possibilities open for the floor as possible.”

Madam chair, that is condenscending [sic] to me. I’m the National Black Chamber of Commerce, and you’re trying to put up some other black group to pit against me. . . .

All that’s condescending, and I don’t like it. It’s racial. I don’t like it. I take — I take offense to it. As an African-American and a veteran of this country, I take offense to that. You’re quoting some other black man — why don’t you quote some other Asian or some — I mean, you’re being racial here. And I think you’re getting on a path here that’s going to explode, in the Post. . . .

We’ve been looking at energy policy since 1996. And we are referring to the experts, regardless of their color. And for someone to tell me — an African-American, college-educated veteran of the United States Army — that I must contend with some other black group and put aside everything else in here. This has nothing to do with the NAACP, and really has nothing to do with the National Black Chamber of Commerce! We’re talking about energy. And that — that road the chair went down, I think is God awful.

Watch the exchange:

Alford, whose organization has received at least $275,000 $350,000 from ExxonMobil, was invited by the Republican members to testify. He purported to have “a deep understanding of small and minority-owned businesses” and spoke on behalf of the “black community” in his opening statement. He cited a flawed economic analysis of Waxman-Markey commissioned by his organization that estimates extreme costs for reducing our dependence on coal and oil.

As Sen. Boxer noted, it seems “relevant” that other organizations with “a deep understanding” of the “black community,” such as NAACP and 100 Black Men of Atlanta, see the threat of global warming and the opportunity in a clean energy future.

Later in the hearing, Alford argued, “Let me speak for the African-American community, because I am African American.”

This coalition letter became the basis for a letter from progressive leaders Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME), asking fellow members to join in their call for higher clean energy standards, stronger regulations for coal plants, and fewer giveaways to polluters:

Ensure More Clean Energy for America. Increase the Renewable Electricity Standard to 30 percent by 2020, combining renewable energy and energy efficiency to deliver more clean energy jobs to the U.S. economy more quickly. Utilities would have to achieve 17 percent mandatory renewables and 10 percent mandatory efficiency by 2020, while maintaining flexibility to do either with 3 percent.

Ensure that All Coal Plants Meet Strict Global Warming Emissions Standards. Maintain or strengthen existing authority under the Clean Air Act to establish limits for global warming emissions from coal plants.

Create More Clean Energy Jobs for America and Build Resiliency to Climate Change. Reduce allocations to polluting industries in order to supplement allowance accounts that would bolster green job development and protection of vulnerable communities that are impacted first and worst by climate change. Shave allocations from fossil fuel producers and redistribute to programs that deliver energy efficiency and renewable energy, create green jobs and train workers to fill them, and protect natural resources and vulnerable communities here and around the world.

The groups, also including the Progressive Democrats of America, collectively generated hundreds of thousands of emails, calls, visits and faxes to Congress asking for these strengthening amendments. The Pingree-Ellison letter has garnered 49 signatures, including a number of members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Blue Dog Adam Schiff (D-CA).

Nearly all of the signatories are expected to vote for passage of the legislation when the vote comes Friday, no matter its final language, so this is primarily an opportunity for members to note they would prefer more equitable and stronger legislation, given the chance. That there are so few members of the House of Representatives willing to take even this soft stand on behalf of a just, green economy is a harsh judgment on the strength of the climate movement.

Signatories of the Pingree-Ellison letter:

Michael E. Capuano (D-MA)
Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY)
Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO)
John Conyers Jr. (D-MI)
Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD)
Donna F. Edwards (D-MD)
Keith Ellison (D-MN)
Sam Farr (D-CA)
Chaka Fattah (D-PA)
Bob Filner (D-CA)
Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ)
John J. Hall (D-NY)
Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL)
Maurice D. Hinchey (D-NY)
Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI)
Paul W. Hodes (D-NH)
Rush D. Holt (D-NJ)
Michael M. Honda (D-CA)
Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-IL)
Henry C. Johnson Jr. (D-GA)
Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH)
James R. Langevin (D-RI)
Barbara Lee (D-CA)
John Lewis (D-GA)
Nita M. Lowey (D-NY)
Dan Maffei (D-NY)
Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY)
Betty McCollum (D-MN)
Kendrick B. Meek (D-FL)
James P. Moran (D-VA)
Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)
Grace F. Napolitano (D-CA)
John W. Olver (D-MA)
Chellie Pingree (D-ME)
Jared Polis (D-CO)
Steven R. Rothman (D-NJ)
John P. Sarbanes (D-MD)
Adam B. Schiff (D-CA)
Robert C. “Bobby’’ Scott (D-VA)
Joe Sestak (D-PA)
Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH)
Adam Smith (D-WA)
Fortney Pete Stark (D-CA)
Paul Tonko (D-NY)
Diane E. Watson (D-CA)
Robert Wexler (D-FL)
David Wu (D-OR)

Boucher’s new energy tax would:

1. Kill 1,105,000 American jobs per year on average

2. Increase electricity rates 90%

3. Increase gas prices 74%

4. Increase an average family’s annual energy bill by $1,500

5. Send U.S. jobs to China and India

These figures are drawn from a repeatedly discredited study by the Heritage Foundation, who used an unrealistic economic model to examine the effects of a cap-and-trade system that does not resemble the comprehensive clean energy provisions of Waxman-Markey. In reality, independent experts from the Congressional Budget Office and the Environmental Protection Agency have found that the clean energy legislation will:

– Decrease electricity bills 7 percent

– Improve the budgets of the poorest 20 percent of Americans

– Cost between 22 to 48 cents a day for the average American household

– Cut global warming pollution and oil dependence

And these studies didn’t even take into account the economic benefit of averting catastrophic climate change. Furthermore, creating powerful standards for global warming pollution and clean energy create good American jobs, not kill them. Boucher’s vote was a down payment on a national investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency that would dramatically reduce U.S. global warming pollution would create 45,000 jobs in Virginia and create 1.7 million jobs every year.

ASWF’s attack exposes the conflict occuring within the American energy industry. From his perch in the energy committee, Boucher won significant concessions on behalf of the coal industry in the legislation. Some companies — like the coal-powered utilities Dominion Resources, American Electric Power, and Duke Energy — recognize that the United States must pass comprehensive climate legislation now, and have heralded Boucher as a champion of their interests. However, Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company, is bankrolling the dishonest attacks of Gingrich’s group and the National Mining Association.

Understanding the specific features of ARRA and ACESA and how they will work in combination allows us to estimate the level of public and private-sector investments in clean energy. As we will demonstrate, the two programs together could create $150 billion a year in new investment and 1.7 million net new jobs a year—that is, 1.7 million more jobs each year than would be the case without a $150 billion shift in spending from conventional fossil fuels to clean energy investments.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in February, ensures direct government spending on clean energy. In the stimulus, the federal government committed to $24.4 billion in spending on energy efficiency, $23 billion for transportation investments, and $25.3 billion for renewable energy from 2010 to 2014. The Waxman-Markey clean-energy economy legislation, if passed, will contribute to green job growth by promoting new private-sector investments over the ensuing decades. Waxman-Markey contains regulations to promote clean energy, a market-based cap on carbon emissions, and initiatives to help American businesses and families transition to clean energy.

Investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency create more than three times as many jobs as equivalent spending on fossil fuels. A $1 million investment in clean energy creates 16.7 jobs while the same spending on fossil fuels yields only 5.3 jobs:

Most of the 1.7 million green jobs created by the $150 billion investment will be generated by retro-fitting buildings for energy efficiency and creating new clean-energy projects, like wind farms. In their words, investing in clean energy means more work for machinists, truck drivers, builders, roofers, insulators, electricians, engineers, and dispatchers. The addition of these 1.7 million jobs to the US economy this year would have meant a full point drop in national unemployment, from 9.4 to 8.4 percent.

In addition to the national projection of job creation that would result from a $150 billion investment in clean energy, the report estimates the net increase in investment revenue and jobs in all fifty states. For example, global warming denier Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) has claimed Waxman-Markey would “relocate American jobs overseas in pursuit of an unproven environmental agenda.” Today’s report finds that Indianans would see a net increase of $3.1 billion in investment and 38,000 jobs. Had the United States made this clean energy investment in 2008, those 38,000 jobs would have brought Indiana’s level of unemployment down more than a percent, from 5.9 to 4.7 percent.

Republicans have tried everything from calling a cap on global warming pollution a “national energy tax” to name-calling — disparaging green jobs and claiming that the clean energy industry is “as real as the Jolly Green Giant.” Opponents of clean energy reform have now lost yet another avenue of protest with this proof that the green economy legislation currently in Congress will help spur billions in investment and create 1.7 million jobs.

We’re really at a reset right now. The opportunities that we have, it seems like America is restructuring its entire economy. So why don’t we restructure it in a way that prepares us for the next generation?

Watch it:

Ellis-Lamkins asked, “Will we be a country that imports its batteries from China and oil from the Middle East, or will we be a country that creates its own energy?” Brokaw related how both Henry Ford and Lee Iacocca missed the boat in the 1970s on energy efficiency and safety for automotives, stuck in the smug complacency of past success. “This is a generational thing,” Donny Deutsch remarked. “Kids today, it’s in their DNA. And that’s what’s going to save us.”

Scarborough concluded:

I can’t state this any more clearly. This is our best chance economically to reengage and once again be leaders. If we take the lead in the green economy, we’ll be economically in good shape.

There’s little doubt in my mind that this legislation will shut down businesses and eliminate blue and white collar jobs. While I know the majority has prided its plan on the creation of green jobs mr chairman I have listened to some of our counterparts in Europe discuss their experience with these green jobs. It seems to me that green jobs, just like leaves on a tree, they may shine in the summertime when everything is sunny, but when the fall comes these leaves will fade and in winter they’ll be long gone. They may be described as “subprime” in comparison to solid traditional manufacturing jobs we’ve recently lost to other countries.

Watch it:

Gingrey and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), who also attacked green jobs by reading from a National Post hit piece (which Whitfield mistakenly called the “New York Post”), were relying on a study by Spanish libertarian Gabriel Calzada that blamed Spain’s support for its renewable industry for its high current level of unemployment. The only problem is that the study — produced by a right-wing Spanish think tank — is “completely untrue.” The Wall Street Journal has pointed out that “the study doesn’t actually identify those jobs allegedly destroyed by renewable-energy spending” and that “hard to see how” Spain’s support for green jobs “could have edged out private-sector spending, especially when the Socialist government there has reduced corporate income-tax rates, most recently this past January.”

Gingrey was right when he said that “solid traditional manufacturing jobs” have been recently lost to other countries. His mistake is in not understanding that investing in green jobs is how to keep these traditional jobs in the United States — from designing, building, and transporting wind turbines to installing insulation and solar panels in millions of homes. Gingrey needs to spend more time in his district and visit his constituents working for green companies like the industrial heating engineering firm Sigma Thermal, home refitting company Wheeler’s Windows and Doors, and the electrical design engineering firm Lunar Accents Design. I doubt they consider their work to be “subprime.”

Transcript:

GINGREY: There’s little doubt in my mind that this legislation will shut down businesses and eliminate blue and white collar jobs. While I know the majority has prided its plan on the creation of green jobs mr chairman I have listened to some of our counterparts in Europe discuss their experience with these green jobs. It seems to me that green jobs, just like leaves on a tree, they may shine in the summertime when everything is sunny, but when the fall comes these leaves will fade and in winter they’ll be long gone. They may be described as “subprime” in comparison to solid traditional manufacturing jobs we’ve recently lost to other countries.

WHITFIELD: I’d like to read from an article in the New York Post. “Green jobs based on top-down subsidies are, of course, unsustainable.” That’s what this legislation does, it subsidizes green jobs. “The Spanish government has recently had to reduce its subsidies to solar by 30%, the green industry is in retreat, and green jobs, too, are being lost by the tens of thousands.” They go on to say if that money had been spent for traditional industries and technology, they would have produced 2.2 jobs for every one job produced by the subsidies. And as a result of those subsidies and the mandates for renewable in Spain, they have an excess of a 17 percent unemployment rate. And at a time when our economy is weak, and no one can say with certainty — except to say we know this bill will be particularly expensive — we jeopardize our global competitiveness in the world, and we are very much concerned about the loss of jobs that will be the result of passing H.R. 2454.

Um. I, I just would say that any American who is prepared to endorse a national energy tax that there’s a better solution. Uh, that they should keep their powder dry. And uh, take their case to the American people that they don’t need, particularly during this very difficult time in the economic life of our nation, to raise the energy cost on our businesses and on American families.

Watch it:

Unfortunately for climate deniers like Pence and his fellow members in the GOP American Energy Solutions Group, corporate leaders aren’t heeding his warning, because they know the “national energy tax” scare is just a lie. As Grist noted, “the House heard the leaders of Duke Energy, ConocoPhillips, and DuPont ask for a cap as recently as April 22.” Politico reports that Nike has been telling the U.S. Chamber of Commerce “to take a more progressive stance on the issue of climate change.” And Exelon Corporation, one of America’s largest electric utilities and another US-CAP member, is featured in a new advertisement today from the Environmental Defense Action Fund calling for a carbon cap as a part of comprehensive clean economic policy:

Vitter said:

“According a preliminary estimate based on the Center for American Progress data, 271,000 oil and gas jobs would be destroyed annually by the administration’s proposed new taxes and fees on energy.”

Watch it:

This is a totally fabricated distortion of our 2008 report, “Green Recovery: A New Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy.”

We wondered where Vitter got it — it turns out this talking point has been circulating for some time, appearing in a document put out by the American Petroleum Institute, in a messaging memo from the oil-backed group Freedom Works, and on a set of talking points hosted on ConocoPhillips’ web site.

The point is a complete distortion of our data (nothing new for conservatives when it comes to energy policy). Our “Green Recovery” report shows that a two-year $100 billion federal investment in a green recovery program, including investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy, would create approximately 2 million jobs. The same amount of money invested in the oil industry would create 542,000 jobs over two years or…271,000 per year.

Apparently, they’ve taken this to mean that President Obama’s energy plan would cost 271,000 lost oil and gas jobs every year, which is simply not what the report says.

This was an analysis of two alternative stimulus plans, one focused on greening the economy, and one focused on boosting the oil industry. The report found that greening the economy creates far more jobs (four times as many) than plowing the same amount of federal money into oil.

Now, to be fair, as the United States shifts off of oil and fossil fuels in the years ahead, there will necessarily be fewer jobs created in the dirty energy, oil & gas extraction and petroleum refining industries, even as more jobs are created in the renewable energy industry, efficiency improvements, and infrastructure upgrades. What is true, however, is that this shift will yield a major net expansion in employment — about 1.2 million more jobs for every $100 billion shift in spending out of fossil fuels and into clean energy.

This job expansion will cover the full range of job categories and every region of the country. This major expansion in employment will result because renewable energy and efficiency improvements are more labor intensive, and substitute domestic spending for imported energy.

If the beneficiaries of the dirty energy status quo and their allies in Congress like Senator Vitter want to defend the interests of the oil & gas industries in order to block the greening of our economy, prevent the creation of millions of new jobs, continue with more of the same Bush-Cheney energy policies that have kept America dependent on oil, and accelerate catastrophic climate change, that’s their right.

Just don’t distort our research in order to do it.

After opening statements by members of the committee on Tuesday, the rest of the week will feature three different sessions each day. The hearings begin on Wednesday with the testimony of Cabinet officials Lisa Jackson, Steven Chu, and Ray La Hood, followed by a panel of representatives of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, and concluding with Fetterman and other green jobs advocates. Thursday’s hearings discuss questions of carbon revenue allocation, international competitiveness, and smarter and cleaner energy. Vice President Al Gore and former senator John Warner (R-VA) will begin Friday’s hearing, followed by policy experts on transportation, energy efficiency, market regulation, and adaptation to the ravages of global warming.

Full schedule of the hearings, which will take place at 2123 Rayburn House Office Building:

Tuesday, April 21, 2009: 3 PM

Opening Statements

Wednesday, April 22, 2009: 9:30 AM

Panel 1: Administration Views on The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009

• The Honorable Lisa Jackson, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• The Honorable Steven Chu, Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy
• The Honorable Ray LaHood, Secretary, U.S. Department of Transportation

Panel 2: United States Climate Action Partnership Views on The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009

• Charles Holliday, Jr., Chairman, DuPont
• Red Cavaney, Senior Vice President, Government and Public Affairs, ConocoPhillips
• Jim Rogers, Chairman, President, and CEO, Duke Energy Corp.
• Frances Beinecke, President, Natural Resources Defense Council
• Meg McDonald, Director, Global Issues, Alcoa Inc.
• David Crane, President and CEO, NRG Energy, Inc.

Panel 3: Green Jobs and Economic Benefits

• The Honorable John Fetterman, Mayor, Braddock, Pennsylvania
• Denise Bode, CEO, American Wind Energy Association
• Dave Foster, Executive Director, Blue Green Alliance
• Kate Gordon, Co-Director, Apollo Alliance
• Kevin Knobloch, President, Union of Concerned Scientists
• David Manning, Vice President, External Affairs, National Grid
• Nathaniel Keohane, Director of Economic Policy and Analysis, Environmental Defense Fund
• Frank Ackerman, Senior Economist, Stockholm Environment Institute, U.S. Center, Tufts University

Thursday, April 23, 2009: 9:30 AM

Panel 1: Allocation Policies to Assist Consumers

• Jeff Sterba, Chairman and CEO, PNM Resources Inc. (on behalf of the Edison Electric Institute)
• Glenn English, CEO, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
• Mark Crisson, President and CEO, American Public Power Association
• John Somerhalder, II, Chairman, CEO, and President, AGL Resources (on behalf of the American Gas Association)
• Richard Morgan, Commissioner, District of Columbia Public Service Commission (on behalf of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners)
• Richard Cowart, Director, Regulatory Assistance Project
• Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, Center for Budget and Policy Priorities

Panel 2: Ensuring U.S. Competitiveness and International Participation

• Rich Wells, Vice President for Energy, The Dow Chemical Company
• Tom Conway, International Vice President, United Steel Workers
• Jack McMackin, Principal, Williams and Jensen, LLC (on behalf of the Energy Intensive Manufacturers Working Group on Greenhouse Gas Regulation)
• Trevor Houser, Visiting Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics
• Eliot Diringer, Vice President for International Strategies, Pew Center on Global Climate Change
• Pastor Doug Smith, Virginia Interfaith Society for Public Policy

Panel 3: Low Carbon Electricity, Carbon Capture and Storage, Renewables, and Grid Modernization

• Dr. Howard Gruenspect, Acting Deputy Administrator, U. S. Energy Information Agency
• Dian Greunich, Commissioner, California Public Utilities Commission
• Dan Reicher, Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, Google, Inc.
• Jim Robo, President and Chief Operating Officer, FPL Group
• David Hawkins, Director of Climate Programs, Natural Resources Defense Council
• Dr. Gregory Kunkel, Vice President for Environment Affairs, Tenaska, Inc.
• Jonathan Briggs, Regional Director of the Americas, Hydrogen Energy International
• Eugene Trisko (on behalf of the United Mine Workers of America)

Friday, April 24, 2009: 10 AM

Panel 1: Vice President Al Gore and Senator John Warner: Bipartisan Leaders’ Views on the ACES Legislation

• The Honorable Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States
• The Honorable John Warner, former United States Senator

Panel 2: Energy Efficiency, Transportation, Building Appliances, and Utilities

• Ian Bowles, Secretary, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
• Dave McCurdy, President and CEO, Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers
• Alan Reuther, Legislative Director, International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW)
• Dan Sperling, Director, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California Davis
• David Friedman, Research Director, Clean Vehicles Program, Union of Concerned Scientists
• David Gardiner, President, David Gardiner & Associates, LLC (on behalf of the Energy Future Coalition)
• Jeff Genzer, Counsel, National Association of State Energy Officials
• Andrew Delaski, Executive Director, Appliance Standards Awareness Project

Panel 3: Carbon Market Assurance, State Roles, Clean Air Act, and Adaptation

• Bill Becker, Executive Director National Association of Clean Air Agencies
• Tia Nelson, Executive Secretary, Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, State of Wisconsin
• Carl Royal, Counsel, Schiff Hardin LLP, formerly Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Chicago Mercantile Exchange
• Jon Anda, Executive-in-Residence, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Visiting Fellow Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions
• David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate Center, Natural Resources Defense Council
• Patricia Mulroy, General Manager, Las Vegas Nevada Water District/Southern Nevada Water Authority

Secretary Solis applauded the formation of the Green Jobs Caucus:

Training American workers in the renewable energy and energy-efficiency industries will provide economic security for our middle-class families while reducing our nation’s dependence on foreign fossil fuels. I was pleased to author the Green Jobs Act with Congressman Tierney, and I believe the Green Jobs Caucus can play an important role in Congress.

Founding members of the Green Jobs Caucus joining Rep. Tierney include Phil Hare (D-IL), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Doris Matsui (D-CA), Jim McGovern (D-MA), and Henry Waxman (C-CA).

The Green Jobs Caucus is the second green economy caucus announced for the 111th Congress, joining the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, led by Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Steve Israel (D-NY).

But the only way to truly spark this transformation is through a gradual, market-based cap on carbon pollution, so that clean energy is the profitable kind of energy. Some have argued that we shouldn’t attempt such a transition until the economy recovers, and they are right that we have to take the costs of transition into account. But we can no longer delay putting a framework for a clean energy economy in place. If businesses and entrepreneurs know today that we are closing this carbon pollution loophole, they will start investing in clean energy now. And pretty soon, we’ll see more companies constructing solar panels, and workers building wind turbines, and car companies manufacturing fuel-efficient cars. Investors will put some money into a new energy technology, and a small business will open to start selling it. That’s how we can grow this economy, enhance our security, and protect our planet at the same time.

The We Campaign is asking Americans to join President Obama’s call to close the carbon loophole and repower America:

The Repower America petition tells Congress to “support bold national policies this year to transition to a clean energy economy and help solve the climate crisis. We urge you to cap carbon pollution to help create the jobs and businesses that will Repower America.”

To deal with global warming progressively requires commitment to progressive values: fairness, opportunity, and honesty. Fairness means that those who have benefited the most from our pollution-based economy bear the greatest responsibility in building a clean energy economy. Opportunity means giving those who have benefited the least hope for a better tomorrow. Honesty means bridging the divide between political reality and actual reality.

In reality, moving to a green economy is necessary to save the planet.

The window for directing this nation on a sustainable path is rapidly closing. The disintegration of the global thermostat –- the Arctic ice cap, the world’s glaciers, the Antarctic ice shelves –- is accelerating. Wide swaths of the world, from Australia to Texas, are in droughts that may be the beginning of permanent desertification. Sea level rise is accelerating. The acidifying oceans are absorbing less carbon dioxide. Increasingly powerful forest fires not only destroy ecosystems but emit stored carbon. Even if global pollution goes down tomorrow, weather disasters, heat waves, hurricanes, floods, the oceans themselves will continue to rise for decades. Global boiling is destroying Tuvalu and the polar bear — and it’s also already struck New Orleans and Cedar Rapids.

Weather disasters are the al Qaeda of climate change. The September 11th attacks cost this nation $80 billion and thousands of lives. This nation woke up to the threat of international terrorism, fueled in part by the global dependence on Middle East oil. Hurricane Katrina cost this nation $80 billion and thousands of lives (and displaced a million). We haven’t woken up.

Building a green economy takes a trillion-dollar shift in resources that has the potential to radically reform the power structure in the United States. A green economy involves moving from capital-intensive energy to labor-intensive energy — instead of McMansions heated by giant power plants financed by the Bank of America, it’s homes greened by insulators and solar panel installers, linked on a smart grid. By making work pay instead of pollution, the economy will thrive but established interests will be forced to change.

Like health care and labor reform, limiting carbon pollution threatens the corrupt business model of the corporate right. So there are 2000 full-time corporate lobbyists, and multimillion-dollar campaigns — run by ACCCE (coal interests), ASWF (right-wing financiers), AFP (pollution industry), COC (corporate right), and NAM (heavy industry) — with one message: we can’t afford change.

In reality, they’re the only ones who can afford the status quo — energy costs and polluter profits rising, oil drilling and oil dependence rising, greenhouse emissions and climate disasters rising, poverty and inequity rising, wages and jobs and health declining.

So for those who fear that we can’t afford change, yes we can. And we must.