HispanicBusiness

Final passage of the American Energy and Security Act this year would provide tens of thousands of new jobs for urban blacks and Hispanics in vibrant new technologies like solar and wind power that will help the U.S. regain its lost leadership in state-of-the-art manufacturing.

While both groups are lightly represented in the nation's leading environmental groups, that should change dramatically during the next decade as they move up the ladder of the many new green companies that will receive start-up subsidies from the federal government.

The potential rewards of green jobs in black and brown communities is starting to take root among minority leaders, who once saw environmental concerns as the province of mainly wealthy, elite whites from Ivy League universities.

"This is not an issue that we can sit on the sidelines and let someone else do the business, because there is too much at stake," observes Frank Stewart, an executive with the American Association of Blacks in Energy and a leading member of the Washington, D.C.-based Commission to Engage African Americans on Climate Change (CEAC).

He and other blacks in the energy sector point out the new green energies now spreading across the country not only will create inner-city jobs, but lower energy costs - an especially vital consideration for urban residents who now spend an estimated 25 percent more of their income on energy than the national average.

The major windfall will come from well-paying jobs that have the potential to lower big city jobless rates by several percentage points over a fairly short time.

A report released in September by the Center for American Progress and the Political Economy Research Center at The University of Massachusetts' main campus in Amherst predicted at least two million construction and manufacturing jobs would spring from Obama's ongoing green economic recovery program. The program retrofits existing homes and buildings in deteriorating cities to make them more energy-efficient.

Other heavily-subsidized federal projects aimed at providing major employment boosts for city residents include:

- Plug-in electric cars rolling off the assembly lines of the Big Three auto makers will help rejuvenate the mired economies of Detroit, Kansas City, Toledo and many other large to mid-sized cities that either build motor vehicles or supply parts for them. As plug-ins increase in popularity, the nation's electric utilities will spend billions of dollars on expanding circuits and grids - the vast majority to service large cities.

- Green jobs also are increasing enrollment and staffing at the nation's colleges and trade schools as students scramble to enhance their credentials for the highly-paid and highly-technical jobs of the new eco-economy. Anticipated new green jobs span a wide spectrum: including such areas as architecture, manufacturing, construction, legal services and federal regulation. One estimate by the U.S. Conference of Mayors projects 4.2 million green jobs by 2038 compared to 750,000 today. The New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, for instance, recently created a "green careers" data base that allows students to scan more than 100 college majors to see likely new green job spin-offs.

A fly-over of major U.S. cities by the end of the next decade should provide an amazing view for Americans now accustomed to smog-shrouded skies, industrial smoke stacks and giant air-conditioning units atop downtown office buildings and hotels.

Instead they will see sparkling, unpolluted air; cars that don't emit exhaust fumes and rooftops that glisten with solar panels and green gardens.

That vision will only materialize, however, if Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill put aside their parochial concerns and cast their votes for a green and healthy planet.

Kathy E. Read is an independent journalist and the former publisher of The Wilson Quarterly, the scholarly journal of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Her commentaries have appeared in leading papers throughout the United States. Readers may write her at 4835 Cordell Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814.

This essay is available to McClatchy-Tribune News Service subscribers. McClatchy-Tribune did not subsidize the writing of this column; the opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of McClatchy-Tribune or its editors.