By Senator Bernie Sanders

This country faces the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  From 2000 to 2008, over 8 million Americans slipped out of the middle class and into poverty, more than 7 million Americans lost their health insurance, over 3 million lost their pensions, millions more lost their homes and savings, and median household income declined by over $2,100.   

Then, as a result of the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street, that very bad situation became much worse with the financial collapse of last year.  The current official unemployment rate of 9.8 percent hides what is in fact an even more dismal economy.   Today, if you add to the official unemployment rate those Americans who have given up looking for work, those who want to work full time but are working part time, some 17 percent of working-age Americans, 27 million people, are either unemployed or underemployed.  That’s catastrophic!

That is the bad news.  Here’s some good news.  If we get our act together as a nation and start addressing the major environmental problems of our time, global warming and our continued dependence on fossil fuels, we can create millions of good paying jobs. In other words, good environmental policy is good economic policy.          

Today, the United States spends over $350 billion per year importing oil from foreign countries like Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Russia.  Let me repeat that.  $350 billion a year!  This is dumb!  This approach simply makes the royalty in Saudi Arabia, some of the richest people in the world, even richer while Americans pay higher and higher prices for their fuel.  It also enables oil companies like Exxon-Mobil and financial speculators like Goldman Sachs to enjoy huge profits at the expense of everyone else.        

What we should be doing, and are now beginning to do, is to invest that huge sum of money in energy efficiency and sustainable energy technologies so that we combat global warming and move toward energy independence.  Not only is this important from an environmental and economic perspective, it will also improve our national security.  We will no longer have to fight wars for oil. 

Let me give you some examples of what I mean.  Vermont has been a national leader in terms of energy efficiency.  If the rest of the country achieved the same level of energy efficiency as Vermont we could prevent the construction of 390 polluting, coal-fired power plants and save hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 10 years.  Equally important, we could create a very significant number of new jobs making our homes, schools, factories, farms and offices more energy efficient. 

But it’s not just energy efficiency.  It’s the need to move to such sustainable energies as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and other technologies as well as improving our public transportation.  Think of the jobs that we can create in Vermont and around the country as we build and install wind turbines – the fastest growing source of new energy in the world.  I recently visited Northern Power in Barre, an expanding Vermont-based company that manufactures wind turbines.  Northern Power, NRG in Hinesburg and other Vermont companies are creating good paying jobs here as they help us produce new energy without greenhouse gas emissions. 
 
The solar cell was invented in the United States.  Unfortunately, however, we now import almost half our solar panels, while countries like Germany and Spain get more energy from solar energy than we do.  Companies like GroSolar of Vermont are expanding, and have offices in a dozen cities, and there is potential for huge job gains as we manufacture and install photovoltaic panels and solar hot-water systems and construct solar thermal plants in the southwest.   That is why I will reintroduce legislation calling for 10 million solar rooftops in the next 10 years, and strong incentives for consumers who want to utilize solar panels as well as companies that want to produce them.

Several months ago I met with representatives from the Vermont wood and forest industry.  While Vermont is already doing a good job in terms of utilizing biomass energy, and have some 45 schools in the state that are heating with wood chips, their view is that we can produce far more energy and new jobs with wood and other forms of biomass than at present.  Chiptech, a South Burlington company, is a leader in biomass combustion energy. My office is now working with a number of communities around the state on the concept of district heating – which would both create new jobs and save businesses and individuals money on their heating bills by using biomass to produce both electricity and heat for homes, offices, colleges, and hospitals. 

Earlier this year President Obama and Congress passed the stimulus package which, in one piece of legislation, more than tripled our annual investment in energy efficiency and sustainable energy technologies.  That was a good start, but we’ve still got a long way to go as we pursue our goal of combating global warming, moving toward energy independence and creating millions of good jobs in the process. 

This opinion article by Sen. Bernie Sanders appeared in newspapers throughout the State of Vermont.  Sanders is a member of both the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, as well as chairman of the Green Jobs and New Economy Subcommittee.