Biden brings 'green' push to Philadelphia

Vice President Biden convened the White House's Middle Class Task Force in Philadelphia yesterday for a daylong inaugural hearing on the promise of prosperity in thousands of "green" jobs expected to be created by the drives to make the nation energy-independent and reduce global warming.

The event, in the Irvine Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania, featured questions from six cabinet secretaries, testimony from eight experts, and a bevy of public officials, including Mayor Nutter, touting their early embrace of the coming green economy.

"We're making an unprecedented investment in . . . clean energy that will be able to create tens of thousands, over time, of good, high-paying jobs, the vast majority of which are not exportable," Biden, the task force chairman, told an invitation-only audience of several hundred.

President Obama's recently enacted $787 billion stimulus plan contains more than $22 billion for renewable-energy and energy-conservation programs. In addition, his budget proposal, released Thursday, calls for $78.7 billion to implement a system to cap carbon-dioxide emissions.

Traditionally, the idea of limiting such emissions has sparked opposition, or at least suspicion, in manufacturing and coal states. But Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, argued that the caps had the potential to create hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs.

"A wind turbine contains 8,000 parts, and a midsized wind farm with 44 turbines uses 6,500 tons of steel," Krupp said. Noting the array of minerals used in making energy-efficient windows, he said there would be opportunities for miners.

"These green jobs aren't just exotic jobs in Silicon Valley," Krupp said. "They're everyday jobs."

There was an undercurrent of competition at the hearing, with representatives of Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Portland, Ore., all vying to claim the title of leading city of green jobs.

Nutter came to the event fresh from the announcement of a $1.1 million Knight Foundation grant to establish a green-jobs training center in the city.

"Philadelphia was the first capital of the United States, and we plan to be the first capital of green jobs," he said.

But when it was his turn at the microphone, Mark Edlen, president of a green-development company in Portland, said his city and state were the greenest in the land, with the highest usage rate of renewable energy and the most hybrid cars. That prompted Cecilia Estolano, chief executive of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Authority, to stand up for her city.

"Leading by example is crucially important as well," Gov. Rendell said, noting he has ordered that 20 percent of all the energy Pennsylvania uses must come from renewable sources by the end of 2010. "The federal government has started down this road, but you could do much more."

Sens. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) and Bob Casey (D., Pa.) and Reps. Chaka Fattah, Bob Brady and Patrick J. Murphy, all Pennsylvania Democrats, also attended the hearing.

Biden said the task force would search across the country during the next year for ways to strengthen the middle class. He said that from 2000 to 2007, while productivity increased, the households of workers in middle tax brackets saw income decline an average of $2,000.

"We broke the bargain, the bargain that was made back in the middle of the last century - that workers producing a more productive economy would participate in the benefits," Biden said. "We want to make sure that does not happen again."

The experts who testified said it was important for the government to make sure the green jobs that were created paid enough - and included benefits - to help people reach and stay in the middle class.

"This green movement, this green wave, has a moral responsibility to be a green wave that lifts all boats," said Van Jones, president of the national environmental group Green for All. Young people in poor neighborhoods should be put to work weatherizing old homes, Jones said. "Let's green the ghetto first," he said. "Give young people on those corners the opportunity to put down those handguns and pick up some caulking guns."

Before the hearing, Biden toured the operations center at Penn, which has cut energy use 15 percent over several years. The campus uses 420 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year, enough to power 50,000 houses; university officials showed Biden how they used computerized technology to monitor all 290 buildings on campus, and to zero in on the energy "vampires."

"This model, this approach, needs to be done on a national scale," Biden said.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said his department already was moving toward an approach that would have utilities conduct detailed energy audits of their entire networks and educate the public on how to reduce consumption.

After the hearing, Nutter and Penn president Amy Gutmann hosted a small reception to honor Specter for his recent vote that, along with those of two other Republican senators, allowed passage of Obama's economic-stimulus package. Gutmann called Specter a "true hero," though conservative Republicans are threatening to defeat him in next year's Republican primary for what many regard as a betrayal.

"Arlen, you deserve all the credit in the world - this wouldn't have happened without you," Biden said as he lauded the man he called his "best friend" from his Senate days.

"He has the profound intellect to comprehend what is most important for the country, and when it is comprehended, the courage to risk his career," Biden said.

When it was his turn, Specter said: "These comments sound more like eulogies, more appropriate for another day. I'm glad to be here under the circumstances."