Stronger National Renewable Electricity Standard Needed for Significant Clean Energy Job Stability and Growth, Study Finds

The Wall Street Journal Market Watch
press release
Feb. 4, 2010, 10:02 a.m. EST

Higher near- and long-term targets would support 274,000 additional jobs nationwide; Southeast, traditional manufacturing states to benefit most

WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb 04, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- CEOs representing America's renewable energy industries announced a major new study showing that a 25% by 2025 national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) would support hundreds of thousands of new American jobs and prevent a near-term collapse in some industries. Job growth in the wind, solar, biomass, waste-to-energy and hydropower industries would particularly benefit the Southeastern U.S. and manufacturing states whose Senators have questioned the viability of renewable electricity.

The "Job Impacts of a National Renewable Electricity Standard" study, conducted by independent firm Navigant Consulting, Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!nci/quotes/nls/nci (NCI 13.33, -0.16, -1.19%) and released by the RES Alliance for Jobs, found that a 25% by 2025 national RES would support an additional 274,000 renewable energy jobs - the equivalent of a cumulative 2.36 million job-years of work -- over a no-national policy option. This total is also significantly higher than the expected jobs supported in the current House and Senate provisions under consideration in Congress.

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