Green stimulus package should “buy American” argue senators

by Chris Parnell writing for energydigital.com

“A group of four U.S. senators have announced legislation to amend last year’s energy stimulus package so that it will focus only on those green projects that support American companies.

The legislation was proposed in a letter signed by Democratic Senators Charles E. Schumer, Bob Casey, Sherrod Brown and Jon Tester, who criticized the current stimulus package for siphoning money off to overseas countries.

The new legislation, called the American Renewable Energy Jobs Act, would amend last year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which released $800 billion in new investment designed to kick start the U.S. economy.

The new amendment would make the Department of Energy and the Treasury obliged to only award stimulus funds to clean energy projects that create and preserve jobs in the U.S.

In their letter to the Treasury the senators said: “We propose to stop Treasury from using American tax payer dollars to support foreign manufacturers and foreign jobs, and respectfully request that you placed a moratorium on distribution of section 1603 grants until our legislation becomes law.” Section 1603 of the Recovery Act allocates grants for energy property in lieu of tax credits.

The Senators have singled out a particular wind project in Texas for criticism. China’s Shenyang Power Group, the U.S. Renewable Energy Group and a Texas company called Cielo Wind Power are involved in a joint venture to build a 648MW wind farm. The Senators says the project is on the verge of receiving $450 million in grants, despite the fact it uses Chinese-made turbines, and that the lion’s share of jobs it creates are in China.

The letter will be embarrassing to the Obama administration, which worked hard to get the stimulus bill past the Republican party last year. So far, 38 percent of the total stimulus funding has been paid out.”

 EnergyDigital

Not many years ago, there wasn’t enough wind power coming from the Great Plains to worry about. Now there is, and lots of people are worrying.

A group of mostly East Coast utility companies calling itself the Coalition for Fair Transmission Policy fears that the prime conditions in the Great Plains will make the region’s wind power too cheap for its members to compete with, unless developers there are made to pay the costs of moving wind power eastward.

Influential natural gas producers and generators in Texas are worried. They are demanding that the state’s wind developers share the costs of backup natural gas generators that must pick up the slack when the wind doesn’t blow. The gas industry, threatened by state policies that promote wind power, is asking regulators to impose penalties on wind generators that can’t deliver scheduled energy when the wind dies down.

And last week, four senators representing New York, Ohio, Montana and Pennsylvania proposed to deny federal clean energy grants to wind developers that buy blades, turbines and other components from abroad.

“It is a no-brainer that stimulus funds should only go to projects that create jobs in the United States rather than overseas,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, pointing at a proposed Texas wind farm whose backers include a Chinese power company.

Some renewable policy advocates say the problem has less to do with China and more with on-and-off-again federal energy policies, and arguments over how to pay for the vast expansion of transmission lines needed to maximize wind power delivery. Instead of looking at foreign rivals, members of Congress should start with a look in the mirror, says this side in the debate.

“We’ve had so many studies,” said Lisa Barton, vice president for transportation strategy and business development at Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power, a strong proponent of grid expansion. “It’s 2010, and yet we still don’t have a decision on how to move forward in connecting wind or in building a more robust transmission system.”

Read the entire article here.

Let’s add up all the cool things about this story: high school students learning skills + eco-friendly jobs + saving energy costs for local governments = a win all around. Read the story below and check out the video from KIVI TV

TREASURE VALLEY YOUTH LEARN GREEN JOBS

Nampa’s Centennial Job Corps Civilian Conservation Center’s partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture allows close to 300 students learn skills for echo-friendly jobs. 　

Brandon Brown, 25, graduated Friday and is about to begin his career in a specialized trade that’s “green-friendly.” Certified in electrical trade, he rewires buildings so they use less energy by using recycled material.

“I never expected to learn as much as I have,” Brown said. “Learning (about) new products coming out into the market is a new way of doing things where we’re leaving less of a footprint.”

Brown has already used his skills to replace light fixtures in the Center’s school gym, making it 30% brighter than before and saving the school about $800 a year.

Brown is one of 300 students who earn their GED and became certified in “green” jobs. Green-collar work is backed by teachers, students, and lawmakers to be the next wave for job opportunity.

“(Green skill work) is the sweet spot with new training efforts on people who are qualified and motivated to compete for these jobs in the future,” said Idaho Congressman Walt Minnick. Idaho is one of eighteen states with this skill training.　Congressman Minnick hopes the program will expand with another facility in northern Idaho by next fiscal year.

Where would we be as a society without the nuts and bolts that hold everything together? I don’t mean that figuratively but literally. Our country is literally held together by nuts and bolts which means those nuts and bolts had better be up to standards. That’s not a problem for the Click Bond Inc., a family run manufacturer that has been cranking out fasteners for over forty years. Check out this profile of the company. Collie Hunter, the company’s CFO has the money quote: “We have to get vocational education back in the schools and teach people what it means to go to work, and what skills they need and that those skills must include English and math.” Amen to that.

LOCAL CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRY: NUTS AND BOLTS KEY TO SUCCESS FOR CLICK BOND by Ray Hagar

Click Bond Inc., would be an easy business to overlook in Northern Nevada. There is no sign in front of its Carson City headquarters. It sits at the end of a road next to the Carson City Airport. There’s not much landscaping. Or parking.

And at first blush, Click Bond products don’t sound too exciting. “Basically, it’s nuts and screws,” said Collie Hutter, the company’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer. Yet people who travel in trains, boats, planes and helicopters the world over can be thankful for Click Bond’s intricate, patented aerospace fasteners. So can the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, since Click Bond fasteners are also instrumental in the development of the F-35 joint strike fighter, the next generation fighter for the United States and its allies.

Hutter runs the company with her husband, Charles Hutter. They have been married 39 years. He is the inventor of the aerospace fasteners, with more than 70 patents to his name. He carries the CEO title and runs the engineering department. He was inducted into the Nevada Inventors Hall of Fame in 1993. Yet Collie Hutter has the business moxie. She is the real boss because, “I have the checkbook in my bottom drawer,” she said with a smile.

The Hutters moved the company to Carson City 30 years ago from Burbank, Calif. They have grown from five employees to more than 300, including 249 in Carson City, about 60 more at a manufacturing plant in Watertown, Conn., and sales engineers in Canada and England.

Their customers include aerospace giants such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Air Canada, British Aerospace, Bombardier and Airbus. Those giants can’t complete an airplane construction without aerospace fasteners, many of which come from Click Bond.

No fastener that leaves Carson City for worldwide shipping can have a flaw. Peoples’ lives are at stake, Hutter said. “Some of the people here who I admire the most are those who can do what looks like the world’s most boring task over and over, and yet every time, it is perfectly done,” Hutter said about the machinists she employs. “Each time they do it, they know that it has to be right and they take great pride in that. They remember that every one of those parts is going on an airplane and they have to be right.”

To read the rest of the profile click here.

As the job title would imply, heavy equipment operators are those skilled labor workers who can handle the big machines. On a construction site, you first have to clear the ground which means operating a bulldozer, dump truck, backhoe and excavator. You’re essentially moving one pile of dirt and rumble into another pile that has to get hauled away. Ask any heavy equipment operator and they’ll tell you that as bulky as these machines are, it takes a level of finesse to operate them properly. That’s not to say a heavy equipment operator has to be “dainty” at the controls but you’ve certainly got to have solid hand eye coordination.

Once the ground is cleared and the building work begins there’s a whole new level of heavy equipment operators that come into play. Typically this will mean crane operators. You could be offloading equipment and supplies from the ground or from a crane built at the top of a skyscraper. Crane operators also come into play at the ports for unloading cargo. Think of that as a huge game of Tetris! The higher you go the more factors such as weather and weight distribution comes into play for crane operators. This means you can just hop into the cab of a crane and get cranking. You need to know the specifics of what you’ll be lifting. Ultimately, the “buck stops” with you as the operator with regard to safety.

Back on the ground, heavy equipment operators also come into play for road construction. Asphalt spreaders, rollers, pile drivers and backhoes (again!) are just a few of the vehicles used in this type of work. This is also the area where there seems the greater chance of finding work with local governments turning to more and more “shovel ready” projects. And by shovel ready, they really mean heavy equipment ready!

Most of the training for a heavy equipment operator is hands on. This can mean going to an accredited trade school for the experience or finding a patient mentor on the job site. Because a lot of these types of machinery work on similar engineering principles you should be able to adapt to a new piece of equipment fairly easily. However, for crane operators many states and cities require specific certification.

And don’t think that all you’ll be doing is moving stuff around as a heavy equipment operator. You should also have the basic knowledge of how this equipment works. You might not be called upon to fix it all the time but knowing when it’s not operating properly will go a long way towards insuring your value on a job site.

This is one of those jobs where you’ll be working mostly outdoors which means weather contingency need to be applied. Heavy equipment operators can begin training right out of high school and can expect to have a starting salary of around sixteen dollars an hour. Your base pay will increase with the amount of time on the job and various skills you pick up along the way. Bottom line: don’t let those formative years of pushing your toy dump truck around the sandbox to go to waste. Consider becoming a heavy equipment operator.

— Meyer

CNN Student News puts together a daily ten minute news block gear specifically for high school students. The stories are basic yet informative and produced with the professional standards you would expect from the network. There is also a daily shout out question that your class can be recognized with. Best of all, there are no commercials.

There are also some productive supplemental resources like a daily discussion and news quiz. You can request transcripts of the show as well as other course materials. Who knows, you might even be inspired to let your kids create their own news broadcast.

Check out the CNN Student News and let us know if it works for you.

— Meyer

Rooftop gardens, cisterns, windmills and recycled kitchen countertops are  featured in green home exhibits at museums in Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

On Thursday in Chicago, the 2,500-square-foot, fully functioning  “Smart Home” exhibit will re-open with a new interior at the the Museum of Science and Industry. More than 200,000 visitors have toured the modern prefab home since it opened in May 2008.

Last week in Dayton, Ohio, the “PNC Be Green House” debuted as a permanent new exhibit at the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery. It has solar panels and rainwater harvesting features that visitors can operate.At least two other green-home exhibits in the United States also aim to show visitors new green technologies as well as ways to reduce their own carbon footprint.

 

Read the entire article here.

Senator A: “Say, friend and colleague, I’ve got a dandy bill we should all vote for.”

Senator B: “Sounds, peachy. What’s it gonna cost us?”

Senator A: “Geepers, I have no idea.”

Senator B: “Too bad we don’t have some sort of congressional budget office to figure these things out.”

Senator A: “That is too bad. Say, wait a minute! We’ve got the power. Let’s make one! We’ll call it the congressional budget office.”

Senator B: “You call it that. I’m gonna call it the CBO!”

Senator A: “Swell. Let’s shake on it!”

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t exactly the conversation that took place. The director of the CBO is appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senator after their respective budget committees have made recommendations. The CBO staff is made up of economists and public policy analysts. Most of these folks have advanced degrees in economics. That’s gotta be some wild Christmas party, huh?

For the record, here is the CBO’s official mission statement: “Under the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 the annual Congressional budget process begins with adopting a concurrent resolution on the budget that sets forth total levels of spending and revenues, and broad spending priorities, for several fiscal years. As a concurrent resolution, it is approved by the House and Senate but does not become law. No funds are spent or revenues raised under the budget resolution. Instead, it serves as an enforceable blueprint for Congressional action on spending and revenue legislation. CBO assists the House and Senate Budget Committees, and the Congress more generally, by preparing reports and analyses. In accordance with the CBO’s mandate to provide objective and impartial analysis, CBO’s reports contain no policy recommendations.”

So that basically means any bill that is going cost the taxpayers money has to be scored by the CBO. Before it can be voted on, the bill is sent over to the CBO offices (which are open for visitors) where the gaggle of accountant number crunching wonks over there get busy to put forth their projections. Those numbers are delivered back to congress and met with either cheers or jeers depending on which side of the proposed bill you are on.

The real issue comes with accuracy. Can the CBO numbers be trusted? For the most part, the CBO has maintained a fairly decent record as a non-partisan organization which is pretty hard to do when you’re actually working inside the government. Most of their estimates err on the side of caution by under estimating the costs. That’s got to be good all around, right?

Not every projection the CBO put forth has withstood the test of time, especially with those ten year projections that congress members love to embrace. Imagine were we were in 2000 versus where we are today. Could anyone actually predict all the wars, the natural disasters and the stock market tanking and factor that into estimates? Nothing would ever get done in congress that way (all evidence to the contrary).

This doesn’t mean that the CBO estimates should be taken with a grain of salt. But as a fairly representative forecast they are still a decent foundation upon which to build a consensus. Unless of course you don’t like the numbers. Then it’s Katy bar the door!

— Meyer

Read full article on Supply Link.

With hundreds of welders, welding generators, wire feeders and metal forming equipment on hand at Tri-City Mechanical, Repair Manager Martin Kellogg worked hard to keep the Chandler, Arizona, plumbing, mechanical and HVAC contractor in production mode. Lugging a 250-amp welder around was not one his favorite things to do.

Read full article on Supply Link.