Vt. receives green jobs funding

BRATTLEBORO -- Vermont is among the eight states sharing roughly $4 million in federal stimulus funding to promote the growing green jobs program, according to Sen. Bernard Sanders.

The U.S. Department of Labor announced Vermont will receive approximately $530,500 to study the demand for "green-collar" jobs in the state and across the Northeast.

Sanders, I-Vt., helped write the legislation a few years ago and pushed for its appropriate in the stimulus package to assist in creating thousands of new green jobs in Vermont’s economy.

"I believe it is absolutely imperative we transform our energy system and move away from spending $350 billion a year purchasing oil from foreign countries and move toward energy efficiency and sustainable energies like wind, solar, geothermal and biomass," said Sanders.

In an interview with the Reformer on Thursday, Sanders said the major setback in this country when it comes to moving toward energy efficiency is a lack of skilled laborers to build a green economy.

"What this legislation is about, is to help train the workforce that we need to transform our energy system," he said, "and I believe that when we make that transformation, we will be creating millions of good paying jobs over a number of years."

Within a few years, Sanders hopes Vermont could become a national leader in growing a green economy.

"If we get our act together as a nation and start addressing the major environmental problems of our time -- global warming and our dependence on fossil fuels -- we can create millions of good paying jobs," said Sanders, who chairs the Senate Green Jobs and the New Economy Subcommittee.

"In other words, good environmental policy is good economy policy," he added.

Vermont delegates led an eight-state consortium that applied for a research grant from the Labor Department. The research project is expected to work with the current green industries in the state to establish a common definition of what the jobs will entail in Vermont.

The grant funding will also develop and implement a system to measure the real-time job demand for green jobs by tracking national online job advertising and identifying the increasing demand in emerging industries.

"Establishing the demand for green jobs will assist job seekers and Vermont’s workforce development community in providing for the proper training to ensure success in these careers," said Gov. James Douglas, in a release. "I am pleased that Vermont will help lead the effort to grow sustainable jobs in the growing green economy."

The national labor department announced there is $55 million in green jobs grants to support job training and market information programs to aide workers find these employment opportunities.

The funding came through a program created in Congress two years ago, after studies found the largest barrier to making the country more energy efficient was the lack of skilled workers in the field.

Chris Garofolo can be reached at cgarofolo@reformer.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 275.