Erika Strassburger: Region at center of clean energy economy

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm recently visited Greensburg and hosted a town hall in Pittsburgh to talk about how Western Pennsylvania can benefit from a clean energy economy.

It makes sense that Pittsburgh, long a hub for industry and innovation, would be a focus of clean energy investment. We’ve been an energy capital since Westinghouse Electric Corp. was founded in the late 1800s. We’re home to many firsts, from the first Ferris Wheel in 1893 to the first polio vaccine in 1954.

Today, we rank among the top cities in the United States for green-certified building space. And thanks to investments from President Biden’s Clean Energy plan, we’re poised to be an economic leader in the clean energy economy.

As of 2022, more than 3.3 million Americans worked clean energy jobs. In the past 10 years alone, these jobs have grown by more than 10%. It’s benefiting all Pennsylvanians. Since the passage of the Clean Energy Plan a year ago, more than 170,000 new clean energy jobs have been created — more than half of them in Republican districts.

These clean energy jobs pay about 21% higher than average and are unionized at a higher rate. Western Pennsylvania is a region that deeply understands and supports the power of unions. We know that unions can and will play a critical role in ensuring workers benefit from a clean energy economy. Three-quarters of the more than 170,000 clean energy jobs created last year don’t require a college degree.

Following the recent launch of the American Climate Corps, more than 40,000 people expressed interest — most of them in the target 18-35 demographic. The administration is deliberately crafting this initiative to be more inclusive and diverse than the Civilian Conservation Corps that inspired it as they focus on creating pathways to long-term, sustainable careers.

This isn’t an economic boom only for the college-educated — it’s an economic boom for everyone.

We need these opportunities because many places in Western Pennsylvania are still hurting from industries going overseas.

We’ve felt the devastating reverberations of shuttered factories and plants, and we need new, permanent industries to create good jobs in Western Pennsylvania. Biden’s Clean Energy Plan invests specifically in communities that have experienced these losses by setting aside additional incentives for census tracts that have experienced recent closures of coal mines or coal-fired power plants. One-fifth of U.S. land, including parts of our region, qualifies for these coal-related incentives.

The incentives created through the Clean Energy Plan and other legislation championed by the Biden administration drive private investment in Pennsylvania — including $250 million for a new solar farm serving 33,000 Pennsylvania households each year. As solar and wind power get even cheaper and more accessible, the cost savings associated with them will be available to even more people in our state.

Our rural areas will also benefit from our efforts to build a clean energy economy. The Biden administration is helping Pennsylvania’s 52,700 farms adapt to our warming planet and investing $1.1 billion in federal funding for infrastructure resilience and flood mitigation. This comes as we’re staring down the mounting economic cost of extreme weather events: according to a new study, $16 million an hour globally over the past two decades.

Western Pennsylvania has put in the work to become a leader in the clean energy economy. We have the workforce, the institutions and the bones. Now, we have to take advantage of Biden and the federal government’s investments in us and ensure that our people benefit. Other states are taking steps to make sure they’re on the cutting energy of clean energy innovation. If we don’t opt-in, we’ll get left behind.

I’m grateful that Granholm came here to further this conversation and ensure the people of Western Pennsylvania are at the center of the growing clean energy economy.

The opportunities are clear. It’s incumbent upon elected leaders in Pittsburgh and surrounding communities to make a commitment to help businesses and organizations leverage federal investments and turn them into seeds of continued long-term economic growth for the region.

Erika Strassburger is a member of Pittsburgh City Council.