Barack Obama and Bill Clinton talk energy efficiency, green jobs

President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton got together to talk about energy efficiency and the Better Buildings Initiative on December 2, 2011:

Bill Clinton:  Well, I never got to open for The Rolling Stones, so I’ll try to do my best for the President.

Thank you all for being here, and I want to thank all the people involved in the tour that we just received for their commitment to energy efficiency and all the people they put to work.

Mr. President, I want to thank you and Secretary Chu and Gene Sperling and your whole team.  Tom Donohue and Randi Weingarten, thank you for joining together today for what you are doing.  

When the President asked me to work with his Jobs Council on improving energy efficiency in buildings, I think he did it because the Clinton Global Initiative and my own climate change project have been working on these kinds of things for several years now, and I believe as strongly as I can say that this is good business, creates jobs, makes us more energy independent and helps to fight climate change.  It’s the nearest thing we’ve got to a free lunch in a tough economy, because all of the savings can be paid back within a reasonable amount of time -- I mean, all the costs of the construction -- through lower utility bills.

So we’ve been working on that.  And the President has an announcement to make about that today.

I just want to say how grateful I am to Rich Trumka and the AFL-CIO and to Randi Weingarten for the work that labor has done in putting up some of the pension funds from California and some other funds they have to actually invest their own money gambling that they can get a reasonable return and putting people to work.  And I appreciate the support that Tom has given to this, because there are a lot of construction firms that are going to lose really skilled, gifted workers if they can’t find something to do, because there’s not a big demand for new buildings today and therefore the best opportunity to preserve and rebuild this sector is through greater energy efficiency.

I want to thank all the people who have been involved in this.  And Mr. President, I just want to say how grateful I am for the meeting we just attended.  The President’s Jobs Council and economic team put together a meeting that we were just present at -- there were nearly 50 people there.  And he’ll tell you what they said they would do.  But -- I hate to sound like a broken record -- we could create an almost unlimited number of jobs out of this, even in this lousy economy, even with all this embedded mortgage crisis, if we can work out the financing.

And I am grateful to be able to support this, to offer the continued effort of our climate change project and the Clinton Global Initiative to help the partners we have that are involved in this and anybody else that wants it.  But I’m especially grateful that the President didn’t let this fall through the cracks. 

You know that I haven’t been in that job for a long time, and I’m getting older, but I have some memory left.  And a thousand people ask you to do a thousand things.  And one of the tests of whether things work out or not, since you can’t do all thousand, is whether you can actually set up a process to do things and follow up.  And I am full of gratitude and praise, Mr. President, for you and your whole team, not just for your commitment to green energy, but for your commitment to energy efficiency, which gives you -- on buildings like this, averages 7,000 jobs for every billion dollars invested -- by far the greatest bang for the buck of any available investment I know…

Barack Obama: Now, our longer-term challenge is rebuilding an economy where hard work is valued and responsibility is rewarded, and the middle class and folks who are trying to get into the middle class regain some security -- an economy that’s built to compete with the rest of the world, and an economy that’s built to last.

And that’s why we are here today, in a place where, clearly, there is some building going on.  President Clinton, leaders of business, leaders of labor, we’re all here to announce some new steps that are going to create good jobs rebuilding America.

This building is in the middle of a retrofitting project to make it more energy efficient.  Already, this retrofit is saving this building $200,000 a year on its energy bills.  And as I mentioned earlier, by the time it’s finished, it will have created more than 250 full-time jobs in construction here in this building.  Consider President Clinton is coming down from the New York, the fact that the owners of the Empire State Building did the same thing; they are retrofitting that iconic landmark from top to bottom.  It’s a big investment, but it will pay for itself by saving them $4.4 million a year in energy costs.  And it’s estimated that all the retrofitting that they’re doing will pay for itself in about four and a half years.

Making our buildings more energy efficient is one of the fastest, easiest and cheapest ways for us to create jobs, save money, and cut down on harmful pollution.  It is a trifecta, which is why you’ve got labor and business behind it.  It could save our businesses up to $40 billion a year on their energy bills -– money better spent growing and hiring new workers.  It would boost manufacturing of energy-efficient materials.  And when millions of construction workers have found themselves out of work since the housing bubble burst, it will put them back to work doing the work that America needs done.  So this is an idea whose time has come.

And that’s why, in February, I announced the Better Buildings Initiative.  It’s an ambitious plan to improve the energy efficiency of America’s commercial buildings 20 percent by the year 2020.  And I asked President Clinton and my Jobs Council to challenge the private sector, as part of the initiative, to step up, make these cost-saving investments, and prove that it works, so that other companies follow their lead.

Now, I believe that if you’re willing to put people to work making your buildings more efficient, America should provide you some incentives to do so.  That’s something that would require congressional action.  And we have asked Congress to work with us to move on providing more effective incentives for commercial building owners all across the country to move forward on these energy-efficient steps.  But we can’t wait for Congress to act.  And if they won’t act, I will.

Which is why, today, I’m directing all federal agencies -- all federal agencies -- to make at least $2 billion worth of energy-efficiency upgrades over the next two years.  None of these upgrades will require taxpayer money to get them going.  We’re going to use performance-based contracts that use savings on energy and utility bills to pay the contractors that do the work.  And it should keep construction workers pretty busy.  In fact, this is something that the Chamber of Commerce has said is critical to private sector job creation.

The private sector and community leaders are also stepping up to the plate alongside the federal government.  President Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative have been tremendous partners in rallying them to join this effort.  So in June, at CGI America, we announced initial commitments of $500 million to upgrade 300 million square feet of building space; some of these projects are already underway.

The good news is, today, we can announce that we’re going even bigger.  We’ve received larger commitments.  We now have 60 major companies, universities, labor unions, hospitals, cities and states, and they are stepping up with nearly $2 billion in financing to upgrade an additional 1.6 billion square feet of commercial industrial space by our target year of 2020.  That’s more than 500 Empire State Buildings.

I just had the chance, along with President Clinton, to meet with representatives of these 60 institutions that are involved and hear firsthand how they can put Americans back to work but also improve their bottom lines. 

So you’ve got companies like Best Buy and Walgreens that are going to upgrade store lighting, which is going to save them money.  You’ve got manufacturers like Alcoa that are going to make their manufacturing plants more efficient, dramatically reducing their operating costs which means they can compete more effectively all around the world. 

You’ve got property management companies that are upgrading their buildings to make their real estate portfolios more attractive to businesses, and one is already upgrading 40,000 units of military housing all across the country, which will give our military families lower utility bills and a higher quality of life.  And all of this will create jobs.

Rick Perry: Green jobs or dirty jobs?

Rick Perry sought to shift the spotlight away from Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan by focusing on jobs and energy at the October 18, 2011 CNN Western Republican Presidential Debate.

“Well, here's the nine that we need to get focused on,” said Perry. “And it's not 999, it's not 59. It's that 9 percent unemployment in this country.”

“We've got 300 years of resources right under our feet in this country,” the Texas Governor claimed. “Yet we've got an administration that is blockading our ability to bring that to the surface, whether it's our petroleum, our natural gas, or our coal. And 1.2 million jobs could be put to work.” 



In many ways, Perry’s jobs plan is the polar opposite of the vision offered by Barack Obama during the 2008 election, which focused heavily on creating green jobs by investing in clean energy. It’s a difference Perry highlighted at the debate.

“You have an administration that is killing jobs because they want to move us to a green energy,” he said.

Of course, New Hampshire is not Texas. We don't have much in the way of oil, natural gas or coal. What we do have is green jobs. A Brookings Institute Report published in July found the state added 3,915 “clean jobs” from 2003 to 2010, bringing the total number of clean economy job in the state to 12,886. That's food for thought for any presidential candidate looking to score points with Granite State voters.

President Obama talks renewable energy, jobs at Cannon Falls, MN Town Hall

President Barack Obama answered a question about green jobs during a Town Hall Meeting in Cannon Falls, Minnesota on August 15,2011.

Question: My question is, how are you going to use renewable energy to create jobs in the future?

Barack Obama:  Well, this is a great question, especially for rural communities all across America.  Tom Vilsack, who was the former governor of Iowa, knows a little bit about agriculture.  And so when I put Tom in as the head of the Department of Agriculture, one of the first things we talked about was, how can we mobilize the incredible resourcefulness and hard work of rural communities all across this country, not just to create jobs, but also to win back energy independence.   And as a consequence, we have put billions of dollars into energy research and to help move in a direction of greater reliance on fuels that are homegrown.

So let me give you a couple of examples.  One, obviously, is biofuels.  And a lot of folks here are familiar with corn-based ethanol, but the fact of the matter is the technology is moving where we need to start taking advantage of a whole range of biofuels, using refuse, using stuff that we don’t use for food to create energy.  And we are seeing incredible progress on that front, but it’s key to make sure that we continue to make the research and that we also use the incredible purchasing power of the federal government to encourage it.  

So one of the things that I know we’re doing is we’re actually working with the Department of Defense to start saying, let’s run some of these -- let me just say this:  The Department of Defense uses a lot of fuel, so the question is, can we get trucks and jeeps and, in some cases, even fighter jets running on alternative fuels, which is important for our national security but also could provide an incredible boost to communities all across Minnesota, all across the country?

The other thing that we have to do is look at things like wind power and solar power and the next generation of electric vehicles.  You will recall when I came into office they were talking about the liquidation of GM and Chrysler, and a lot of folks said, you can’t help them, and it’s a waste of the government’s money to try to help them.  But what I said was, we can’t afford to lose up to a million jobs in this country, particularly in the Midwest, but we also can’t afford to lose leadership in terms of building an auto industry that we used to own.

And so we turned around those auto companies -- they are now making a profit for the first time in decades, they’re gaining market share for the first time in years.  (Applause.)  But what we said was, if we’re going to help you, then you’ve also got to change your ways.  You can’t just make money on SUVs and trucks.  There’s a place for SUVs and trucks, but as gas prices keep on going up, you’ve got to understand the market -- people are going to be trying to save money.  

And so what we’ve now seen is an investment in electric vehicles, and then what we did was we put investments in something called advanced battery manufacturing, because those electric cars, how well they run depends on how good the batteries are -- how long they can run before they get recharged.  We only had 2 percent of the advanced battery manufacturing market when I came into office.  We’re on track now to have 30, 40, 50 percent of that market.  (Applause.)  We are making batteries here in the United States of America that go into electric cars made here in the United States of America.  It creates jobs, and it creates -- (applause) -- and it creates energy independence, and it also improves our environment.

So that’s the kind of approach that we have to take -- using the private sector, understanding that ultimately the private sector is going to be creating jobs, but also understanding that the government can be an effective partner in that process.  And nowhere is that more true than in rural America.  So, great question. 

Click here for a complete transcript of President Obama's Cannon Falls Town Hall

Watch a video of the President's remarks:

Barack Obama: Clean energy creating jobs

President Barack Obama revisited the theme of green jobs on Saturday in his Weekly Address:

We know that more and more jobs are being created in the clean energy sector, so we’re investing in wind power, solar power, and biofuels that will make us less dependent on foreign oil and clean up our planet for our children. These are steps we know will make a difference in people’s lives – not just twenty years from now, or ten years from now, but now, and in the months to come.