As the country continues to grapple with the economic challenges wrought by COVID-19, Congress is now working on putting together a fourth relief and recovery package. With that in mind, this week Arizona Martha McSally and Colorado Senator Cory Gardner—along with other Republican Senators from across the country—sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urging him to consider including “policies that will bolster jobs and innovation across the clean energy economy including renewables, nuclear, carbon capture, efficiency, advanced transportation, and energy storage.”
While Senators Gardner and McSally and others recognize the importance of addressing immediate needs, the letter urges a focus on opportunities that will address the nation’s current economic difficulties while also yielding long-term benefits.
As they point out, the clean energy sector has already proven that it can do both. Pre-COVID, job growth in the clean energy sector outpaced the U.S. economy by 70 percent over the past five years, employing millions of Americans across the country. While COVID-related layoffs and furloughs have hit the industry hard, federal investment in the clean energy sector can renew this critical and sustained job growth, helping to jump-start America’s economic recovery while ensuring continued U.S. energy independence and diversification.
As the Senators point out in their letter, “continuing to scale up the clean energy sector would grow jobs, support U.S. energy independence, economic resilience, and will be essential for global competitiveness.”
The Western Way supports this commonsense call for prudent investment in a sector that will yield benefits across the country and especially in the rural west where a majority of our country’s prime clean energy resources are located.