Task Force Focuses on Green Jobs as a Pathway to a Strong Middle Class
The White House Task Force on Middle Class Families, led by Vice President Joe Biden, held its inaugural meeting on February 27 in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania. The Task Force has a simple mandate: to find, highlight and implement solutions to the economic challenges facing the American middle class. With President Obama announcing last week more than $20 billion for investment in a cleaner, greener economy – including $500 million for green job training – the Task Force’s first order of business is to evaluate what investing in green jobs will mean for middle class families.
After VP Joe Biden presented at the Middle Class Task Force Meeting and discussed the $19 billion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment act that is dedicated to renewable energy. Solpower Jobs, a green web recruiter, believes Biden’s plan lacks foresight (Source: PRWEB and Solpower jobs).
Vice President Biden said,
“We all know that the existing electrical grid today is inadequate, insufficient and outdated. For example, of all the wind power that we’re talking about being able to create in the Midwest and North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and other plain states, (has) significant potential. But it cannot carry that energy right now to population centers that need the electricity most without a new transmission superhighway.”
Solpower jobs remarked on Biden’s meeting the next day saying,
“there is no doubt that smart grid technology is an improvement over the current electrical grid but… The current administration has not recognized the self sufficient decentralized energy sector.” Solpower jobs continued to bash the plan and proposed that building self powered homes was a better use of the budgeted funds.
Vice President Biden’s proposal would spend $11 billion of the $19 billion to build “The Transmission Superhighway” which the US Energy Department believes could provide the US with 20% wind energy. Additional information is available at the U.S. Department of energy website.
Additional Background on the Task Force
The Middle Class Task Force, chaired by Vice President Biden, is working with a wide array of federal agencies that have responsibility for key issues facing the middle class to expedite administrative reforms, propose Executive orders, and develop legislative and policy proposals that can be of special importance to working families. One of the things that makes this task force distinctive is it brings together – in one place – those agencies that have the most impact on the well-being of the middle class in our country. For more information, visit www.AStrongMiddleClass.gov.
Who’s right?
Is VP Biden’s focus on the transmission superhighway a wise use of the money? Or, is more critical thinking and brain power needed to address our nation’s power dilemma?