A year ago the Obama administration enacted the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).  Last week, President Obama linked economic recovery to investments in clean energy and green job creation in his State of the Union address.  Meanwhile, unemployment is still very high (9.7% last month officially) and 20,000 jobs were also lost last month. Where is the green jobs revolution?  We need it now  more than ever.  The U.S. should be churning out solar panels and creating hundreds of jobs with their installation on American homes and businesses. This is exactly what a few smart Congressmen want.

Congress has waited so long to pass a meaningful climate change and green jobs bill that China is way ahead of the U.S. in building solar panels and wind turbines.  The stimulus was never meant to be the only spending on green energy that we did in the near future. It was only the start.  This is responsible spending because it will create jobs.

More than $200 billion of the stimulus package was earmarked for projects that would either directly or indirectly create green jobs.  (The second reporting by ARRA recipients was made public on recovery.gov last Saturday.)

Last  Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced a bill aimed at getting 10 million new solar rooftop systems and 200,000 new solar hot water heating systems installed in the U.S. in the next 10 years.  This is exactly what the U.S. needs right now! This is from Grist.

Titled the “10 Million Solar Roofs & 10 Million Gallons of Solar Hot Water Act” (PDF), it would provide rebates that cover up to half the cost of new systems, along the lines of incentive programs in California and New Jersey (not coincidentally, Nos. 1 and 2 in installed solar in the U.S.). It also includes measures to insure that those who receive assistance get information on how to make their buildings more energy efficient.

Sanders currently has nine co-sponsors: Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.),  Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.).

The bill would accelerate what is already a fairly rapid pace of growth for distributed solar power. Distributed energy has a number of advantages over its central-plant competitors (both clean and dirty): it’s faster to build, avoids the need for expensive transmission lines, can use already developed land, and enhances community resilience and self-reliance. It’s also labor-intensive, creating more jobs per dollar of investment than its competitors—a feature that may make it more attractive during a recession, when Democrats are turning their attention to unemployment.  In part he said,

Sanders: The fact is that every state in this country can produce at least 10 percent of its electricity from solar. [Sanders’ press release cites ISLR’s report on Energy Self-Reliant States.] In Vermont, we’re moving on solar. New Jersey is one of the leading producers [...]