I recently attended the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on skills attainment for green jobs entitled Empowering Workers to Rebuild America’s Economy and Longer-Term Competitiveness: Green Skills Training for Workers.  Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis testified (in her first hearing as Secretary) about how green jobs will help the economy recover and help the U.S. become more energy independent.  The Department of Labor (DOL) is promoting green jobs through programs funded with ARRA money and Solis emphasized that these programs will be more effective if DOL partners with other agencies within the government and organizations in both the U.S. and in the international community.  The Secretary indicated that WIA needs to be reauthorized to sustain the growth of green jobs, and that there needs to be a seamless system in place that people can go in and out of as their employment situations changes.  Solis stated that community colleges will have a major role in shaping and teaching the curriculum needed to train people for green jobs.  

Another tidbit I picked up at the hearing is that the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has created a new subcommittee on Green Jobs and the New Economy chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont; Senator Kit Bond of Missouri will serve as Ranking Member.  It’s not every day that a new subcommittee is formed, so I am very excited that this one is in an area in which I will be working extensively.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 1st, 2009 at 7:20 am and is filed under Legislation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.