Union Members Continue Cross-Country Tour to Urge Action on Clean Energy Jobs

PORTLAND, ME – A bus tour highlighting the potential to create good American jobs by passing comprehensive clean energy and climate change legislation in the U.S. Senate will stop in Portland today to urge Senators Collins and Snowe to support action on comprehensive legislation that will create and save millions of American, clean energy jobs, including up to create up to 12,000 jobs in Maine.

“Nearly 1 out of 10 Americans are still out of work and we need action now to create and preserve millions of jobs across the country,” said Don Berry, President of the Maine State AFL-CIO. “We have a solution right at our fingertips — we can create good jobs here in Maine with clean energy.”

The Job’s Not Done tour is traveling to 17 states — with more than 30 stops along the way — and features clean energy workers, union members and environmentalists urging Senate action on important job-creating clean energy legislation. Workers on The Job’s Not Done Tour worry that China will take the millions of potential jobs that will result from the transition to a clean energy economy.

“Instead of importing clean energy technologies, we should develop and manufacture the technology to harness American energy here at home,” said Leon Weeks, a member of USW Local 5965 out of Freeport, Michigan. “We can’t afford to let other countries like China take the millions of jobs that could be created in America by transitioning to clean energy.”

The tour will continue to Boston, Massachusetts, through Richmond, Virginia on September 3. For more information, visit www.bluegreenalliance.org.

“This tour is a reminder that millions of people are out of work, and clean energy is the best way to jumpstart the American economy. We need the Senate to get back to work and get the job done — for our families, the economy, our environment, and the future,” said Lisa Pohlmann, Deputy Director, Natural Resources Council of Maine.