Kaplan in New Business Week Column: Energy Innovation Should Trump Job Creation

Posted by Melissa Withers on June 25, 2009

An excerpt from the BusinessWeek article, "Energy Innovation Should Trump Job Creation," by Saul Kaplan

Across the country, it is hard to find an elected official who hasn't jumped on the green economy bandwagon. So many stump speeches marry the policy objectives of saving the environment and creating jobs. It starts at the top: President Barack Obama has promised to spend $150 billion over 10 years to create 5 million green-collar jobs. Like a human wave at a sporting event, Americans are cheering for the green economy to bring us out of our economic funk and solve global warming and foreign energy dependence, all at the same time.

Of course, we have serious work to do in these important policy areas. The threat of climate change is real and we must act now. Transforming our national energy system will require broad public support and collaborative innovation across sectors. The current economic crisis is a wakeup call for our country to become more competitive by strengthening our education and workforce development systems and committing ourselves to a national innovation agenda. While there is overlap and potential synergy between energy and economic policies, I worry we will accomplish neither if we treat them as one big policy mashup.

Read the BusinessWeek article
Energy Innovation Should Trump Job Creation