Blue-collar green jobs gaining momentum, causing debate

Manufacturing and industrial jobs  in the United States are rapidly becoming a thing of the past as a down economy is stretching dollars further oversees. Plants and factories are being shut down nationwide, leaving workers unemployed. Prayers of desperation for a new wave of work are all many can hold on to with the limited education and/or work experience they possess. 

Obama's stimulus plan hoped to change all that, but many have not seen the ripple effects of that money. Recently, however, blue-collar green jobs or clean energy jobs are finally gaining the momentum needed to become a legitimate job market and job opportunity.  The problem is that as results of green jobs trickle in, pressure for immediate results and a hurting job market mount and make many, including Congress, uncomfortable.

The more Obama's administration pours into renewable energy, the stronger the debate gets in Congress.

Ultimately, those that oppose the current plan either feel as though there is not a strong enough "comprehensive energy strategy" or that the green jobs have the potential to take away from the manufacturing sector.

Those supporting the funding, including Governor Gregoire from Washington, have seen the results and the correlation between renewed energy development and job creation. In fact, Gregoire recently attended the National Governors Association as an advocate to "create thousands of green-collar jobs [... and] attract support for a radical transformation of society."

He is an advocate of the radical transformation towards renewable energy and green collar jobs because he has seen a boom in green employment in his own state. In less than two years, Washington went from hoping to have 25,000 green jobs by 2020 to having 47,000 right now.

Clean energy jobs are not just a focus for the Washington governor. In Minnesota, according to a report called "Winds of Progress", the state hopes to generate about 2,200 jobs by constructing 4,059 megawatts of wind generated energy from turbines.

In Michigan, Governor Granholm is attempting to fill vacant factories with factory workers through grants that will potentially make "Michigan a leading manufacturer of wind-energy equipment."

In other words, she is taking blue-collared laid off workers, turning them into green collar workers, and adding to the manufacturing sector, not taking away from it.

Besides the manufacturing of major renewable energy sources, other plans to get blue collar workers back into the job force include the construction of energy efficient buildings, the creation of policies surrounding renewable energy, and the enforcement of of those policies and regulations.

Sure, the plan isn't as "comprehensive" as it maybe should have been with the amount of money put into it, but it's producing results and getting people hired in a booming industry instead of a tanking, easily shipped oversees industry. It is not only going to benefit the manufacturing industry, but the overall job force in the United States.