A U.S. Member of Congress is proposing to boost educational, apprenticeship, and other job training opportunities for oil, coal mining, and power plant workers moving into the clean energy sector.
“For too long, American workers have been subject to the ebbs and flows of production in the fossil fuel sector,” Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) said in a release. “When production is down, jobs go away, and economic uncertainty follows.”
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As a point of comparison, “clean energy jobs have grown at a rate of 6% annually in recent years, while fossil fuel jobs have shrunk”, he said. “There ought to be a pathway to consistent employment in the renewable energy sector, and I look forward to introducing a plan to do just that.”
Pallone, the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is drafting legislation with advice from a “wide array of experts” in business and labour, UN Climate Action reports. He plans to introduce the bill this fall. His home state “has been a proactive supporter of the transition to a clean energy system and renewable energy deployment, with installed solar capacity having reached 2GW,” the publication notes.
