Lawmakers seek boost in ‘green collar’ jobs

By Rachel La Corte | The Associated Press • Published February 10, 2008

CENTRALIA – In a town still reeling from the closure of a massive coal mine, dozens of students train each year to work in the energy industry, immersing themselves in the intricacies of power generation and plant design.

Many move on to apprenticeships at places like the Bonneville Power Administration or the Grand Coulee Dam, or jobs at power companies like Seattle Steam.

The executive director of the Center for Excellence for Energy Technology at Centralia College hopes her graduates will be part of an emerging “green collar” work force envisioned by state lawmakers, who want to spark the creation of 25,000 such jobs in Washington state by 2020.

“We’re in the right place at the right time,” said Barbara Hins-Turner, who said the center is just starting to emphasize renewable energy in its classes, including a recent field trip to a wind turbine training center in Portland.

The National Conference of State Legislatures said that no other state has passed a measure like Washington’s, which ties a carbon reduction policy to a green jobs initiative, although a number have introduced bills to promote green jobs.

“The places that have done programs that they’re specifically calling green jobs, that’s mostly happening at the local level, it’s not happening at the state level yet,” said Kate Gordon, program director for San Francisco-based Apollo Alliance, a coalition of groups that promote a clean- energy based economy.

“Washington state is the only state that has put climate change and green jobs together,” she said, noting that Oakland, Calif., and Los Angeles both have strong green- collar job programs in place. “You really can point to it as a model, the first of its kind.”

Last year, lawmakers passed a bill setting goals for reducing emissions over the next four decades, and increasing clean-energy jobs to 25,000 by 2020. This year’s bill builds off that underlying law and sets the guidelines for how to reach those goals.

The measure, requested by Gov. Chris Gregoire, requires major sources of greenhouse gases to measure and report their emissions, and also requires the state to design a regional cap and trade market for carbon emissions by December.