The solar and wind industries provide over 12,000 jobs in Wisconsin. This job growth has been supported for years by utility incentives and state policies like Wisconsin’s Renewable Portfolio Standard and Focus on Energy Program. However, Wisconsin’s recent political and policy shifts have undermined clean energy development and job creation.

“Wind and solar energy development have created new jobs and business growth that Wisconsin needs,” said ELPC Executive Director Howard Learner. “With over 250 local companies ready to grow, Wisconsin’s leaders should be looking for ways to advance public policies that encourage renewable energy development and progress in the state.”

ELPC surveyed businesses statewide to identify Wisconsin companies that are actively participating in the renewable energy supply chain. The list includes steelmakers, electrical component manufacturers, engineering firms and other longstanding businesses that are profiting from renewable energy development, as well as start-ups and small businesses developing cutting edge clean energy technology.  For example:

Caleffi sells solar thermal systems and components from its Milwaukee office. “Solar is a real job creator in Wisconsin and across the United States and one of the biggest generators of growth for Caleffi,” said Rex Gillespie Caleffi’s Director of Marketing.

Oshkosh-based wind manufacturing company Renewegy builds and installs light commercial wind turbines. The company plans to add 50 new employees in the coming years. “Not only do we manufacture and employ workers here in Oshkosh, but 90 percent of our components are sourced from Midwestern partners,” said Dana Enz, Renewegy’s VP of Sales. “As we grow, they grow.”

Smart state and local policies can make a big difference in creating economic development and new jobs for the solar and wind sector. Helios recently opened Wisconsin’s first solar panel manufacturing plant in Milwaukee. Low-interest loans provided by the state and the City of Milwaukee convinced Helios to locate in Wisconsin. “The Midwest is getting close to becoming a real solar hotspot,” said Helios’ General Manager Brent Brucker. “A little more foresight on the part of a state legislatures and this region could really take off.”

As part of its effort to promote economic growth and environmental progress through clean energy development, ELPC has also completed wind and solar supply chain studies for Illinois, Iowa, Michigan and Ohio. Across these five states, ELPC has identified more than 1,000 clean energy businesses employing over 50,000 people.

To download a copy of the report visit www.elpc.org/WisconsinEnergy

“Preventing just one death is heroic, and EPA’s new pollution reduction standards do even better by preventing tens of thousands of premature deaths and heart attacks and avoiding hundreds of thousands of illnesses.

Reducing soot and smog can alleviate asthma and help people’s health in ways that make good economic sense.  The EPA’s Cross State Pollution Rule will generate up to $290 billion in annual health and welfare benefits, which greatly exceeds the pollution clean-up costs.

These long overdue clean air standards will create new jobs as utilities hire skilled workers to install modern pollution control equipment and replace the oldest, most highly polluting coal plants with cleaner new energy sources.

Today, we celebrate the beginning of a healthier nation and a stronger economy by reducing air pollution that has been both harming our health and draining our wallets.”

Read US EPA’s final cross-state air pollution rule here: http://www.epa.gov/crossstaterule/

Download ELPC’s mercury report here.

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The Environmental Law & Policy Center is the Midwest’s leading environmental legal advocacy and eco-business innovation organization. www.ELPC.org

Some are trying to spin this decision as a defeat for environmentalists, but the reality is that the Court’s opinion reaffirms the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority use the Clean Air Act to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. The decision should speed up EPA’s implementation of greenhouse gas standards by making legal challenges to the effort more difficult.

Read more about this recent decision in American Electric Power, et al. v. Connecticut et al. in ELPC Executive Director Howard Learner’s recent Huffington Post blog entry.

Also read about the case in Forbes Online or Grist.org.

Read the column in the Chicago Tribune

The Michigan Public Service Commission directed Consumers Energy to expand its popular solar energy program, known as the Experimental Advanced Renewables Program (EARP). ELPC has been advocating to expand the program. “This decision moves Michigan’s energy sector in the right direction,” Said ELPC Attorney Brad Klein. “A smart solar program can keep bills down while creating new jobs and new clean energy for Michigan.”

Consumers Energy had planned to freeze the solar program, which would have slowed solar energy development in Michigan, reduced the diversity of Michigan’s energy portfolio and cut off an important driver for economic growth.  ELPC worked with clean energy businesses in Michigan to advocate for an expansion of the solar program that would continue to create jobs and business growth with minimal impact on consumer bills.

The Public Service Commission agreed with ELPC, stating, “The continuation of the EARP will encourage private investment in renewable energy, accelerate the economic recovery in Michigan and will provide support for the state’s growing clean energy economy.”

The solar energy business in Michigan is thriving. ELPC’s recent report found that over 120 Michigan companies are providing 6,300 jobs in the solar industry. A well-designed solar program will help Michigan’s solar businesses continue to grow while providing a diverse and affordable supply of clean energy to Michigan.

The Public Service Commission’s decision is an important step forward for clean energy in Michigan, though some details of Consumers’ solar program still need to be addressed, especially the prices that will be offered to customers that install solar systems on their homes or businesses.  ELPC is looking forward to working with the Company and the Commission to ensure the Company’s renewable energy program is successful.

Read more in Crain’s Detroit Business

See the Michigan Public service Commission’s order here

Since March 7, Aldermen Solis (25^th), Austin (34^th), Brookins (21^st),  Cardenas (12^th), Daley (43^rd) Fioretti (2^nd), Maldonado (26^th), Newsome (4^th)  and Tunney (44^th) have announced that they too will co-sponsor the ordinance, bringing the total number of co-sponsors to 26.  Others, such as Alderman Stone (50^th) and are not co-sponsors, but have pledged to vote in favor of the ordinance.

The Chicago Clean Power Ordinance was introduced in April 2010 by Ald. Joe Moore (49th Ward) in response to the health and environmental damage created across the city by the Fisk and Crawford coal plants in Pilsen and Little Village. The ordinance would drastically reduce soot and greenhouse gas pollution from the two plants, thereby reducing the number of hospitalizations and premature deaths caused by the plants’ pollution and lowering the estimated $127 million in public health costs the plants create each year.

“The people of Chicago want the Clean Power Ordinance to pass.” Said Edyta Sitko of Greenpeace. “We are excited that the City Council is moving forward on this ordinance, which will prevent more unnecessary illness and death.”

Before coming to a vote before the City Council, the Clean Power Ordinance will be heard by a joint committee on consisting of the Committee on Energy, Environmental Protection and Public Utilities, chaired by Alderman Virginia Rugai ( 19th Ward ) and the Committee on Health, chaired by Alderman James Balcer ( 11th Ward).  The committee hearing will be held on April 21^st. The final City Council meeting of Mayor Daley’s Administration and the current City Council will be held May 4.

The Chicago Clean Power Coalition, a group of over 56 local business, health, labor, environmental and community organizations is calling on alderman to pass the Ordinance before the Council adjourns in May.  “We are grateful to the co-sponsoring Aldermen who value the good health of their constituents and protecting the environment,” said Lan Richart of the Eco-Justice Collaborative, a Coalition member group. “We now look forward to the joint committee hearing and a vote in the full City Council. The health of millions of Chicagoans and future generations depends on it.”

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The Chicago Clean Power Ordinance is supported by: 8th Day Center for Justice * 49th Ward Green Corps * Action Now * Aerotecture International Inc. * American Renewable Energy & Power, LLC * American Medical Student Association-UIC * Blacks in Green * Buddhist Peace Fellowship * CAPOW! Citizens Act to Protect Our Water * Chicago Youth Climate Coalition * Citizen Action / Illinois * Citizens Committee for a Clean Blue Island * Collective Consciousness Movement * Consolidated Printing * David Weiner & Associates * Design Makes Change * Doctors Council SEIU * Eco-Justice Collaborative * Energy Action Coalition * Environment Illinois * Environmental Law & Policy Center * Faith in Place * Gaia Movement USA  * Green Guy Solutions * Green Sanctuary Group, Beverly Unitarian Church * Greenpeace * Growing Station Community Garden * KenJiva Energy Systems * Illinois Solar Energy Association *  Illinois Student Environmental Coalition * Little Village Env. Justice Organization * Loyola University, Student Env. Alliance * Natural Resources Defense Council * Nuclear Energy Information Service * Oikos: The Religion and Environment Initiative * Peace Productions * Physicians for Social Responsibility * Pilsen Env. Rights & Reform Organization * Progressive Democrats of America * Protestants for the Common Good * Rainforest Action Network Chicago * Ravenswood Community Council * Resource Center*Respiratory Health Assoc. of Metro. Chicago*  SAIC Student Env. Activism Group * Students for a Just & Stable Future * Southeast Environmental Task Force * Sierra Club * SolAir Works, Inc. * Team 15 United * Topless America * Union of Concerned Scientists * UIC College of Medicine, Community Action Program * Urban Sustain * Wellington Avenue UCC * Windy City Green Power– www.cleanpowerchicago.org

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The resolution recognizes that, among other benefits, the Clean Air Act has saved hundreds of thousands of lives and is estimated to provide up to $40 of health and economic benefits to Americans for every dollar invested.

The resolution comes at a time when some members of Congress are attempting to weaken the clean air act and restrict its ability to protect public health and the environment. The Senate is expected to vote soon on up to four amendments that would strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to reduce carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act. ELPC commends this resolution and opposes efforts to weaken the Clean Air Act.

Take action to protect the clean air act here. Read the Senate resolution here.

How soon we forget.

In 1970, speaking from badly polluted Los Angeles, Bob Hope cracked, “I don’t trust air I can’t see.” Most Americans could see too much of their air. So they demanded that Congress and the president do something about it.

Today the agency President Richard Nixon created in response to the public outcry over visible air pollution and flammable rivers is under siege. The Senate is poised to vote on a bill that would, for the first time, “disapprove” of a scientifically based finding, in this case that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. This finding was extensively reviewed by officials in the administrations of presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. It was finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency in response to a 2007 Supreme Court decision that greenhouse gases fit within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants.

As former administrators of the EPA, both under Republican presidents, we have observed firsthand rapid changes in scientific knowledge concerning the dangers posed by particular pollutants, including lead additives in gasoline, benzene and the impact of contaminants on our drinking-water supply. In each of these cases, the authority of our major environmental statutes was essential to protect public health and the most vulnerable members of our society, even in the face of remaining scientific debate.

Earlier this year, the House of Representatives approved a bill that would cut the EPA’s budget by nearly a third and in certain areas impede its ability to protect our air and water.

The EPA was created out of recognition that pollution — largely an unwanted side effect of an increasingly industrialized society — needed to be controlled or America’s public health and environment would deteriorate. The public called on our national government to step in and halt what the states could not or would not do.

As the EPA was being established, Congress passed the Clean Air Act in a burst of nonpartisan agreement: 73 to 0 in the Senate and 374 to 1 in the House.

During the 1970s, many other laws were passed to deal with air and water pollution, drinking-water contamination, radiation, solid waste, pesticides and toxic substances. Sixteen major pieces of legislation were enacted to address aspects of industrial, municipal or human activity that were threatening public health or the environment. Most were passed by a Democrat-controlled Congress and signed into law by a Republican president, and the votes were seldom close.

The air across our country is appreciably cleaner and healthier as a result of EPA regulation of trucks, buses, automobiles and large industrial sources of air pollution. There are three times the number of cars on the roads today as in 1970, yet they put out a small fraction of the pollution.

Likewise, American waterways have shown marked improvement. Lakes and rivers across the nation have shifted from being public health threats to being sources of drinking water as well as places for fishing and other forms of recreation. Lake Erie was declared dead in 1970 but today supports a multimillion-dollar fishery.

Amid the virulent attacks on the EPA driven by concern about overregulation, it is easy to forget how far we have come in the past 40 years. We should take heart from all this progress and not, as some in Congress have suggested, seek to tear down the agency that the president and Congress created to protect America’s health and environment.

It has taken four decades to put in place the infrastructure to ensure that pollution is controlled through limitations on corporate, municipal and individual conduct. Dismantle that infrastructure today, and a new one would have to be created tomorrow at great expense and at great sacrifice to America’s public health and environment. The American public will not long stand for an end to regulations that have protected their health and quality of life.

Our country needs today what it needed in 1970: a strong, self-confident, scientifically driven, transparent, fair and responsible EPA. Congress should help America achieve that. It should do so not with lowered sights but lowered voices that will result in an EPA fully capable of helping fashion a prosperous, healthy America whose environment continues to improve.

William D. Ruckelshaus was administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 1970 to 1973 and 1983 to 1985. Christine Todd Whitman, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, was EPA administrator from 2001 to 2003.

© 2011 The Washington Post Company