Climate change legislation will boost job growth in our country. Business owners, nonprofit organizations, union leaders, youth groups and Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer were at Nike headquarters yesterday to launch the Race for American Jobs & Clean Energy Leadership event. Since this is a climate change-focused event, the race will be held in the virtual arena instead of being a physical nationwide race.

 

The event is sponsored by the We Can Lead campaign and is designed to generate endorsements from business leaders across the country who support climate change legislation. This climate change legislation will create new green jobs in our country, a win-win situation for our environmental and economic crises.

 

"We believe that building sustainable business practices will help fuel the economy and the environment," said Sarah Severn, director of Stakeholder Mobilization for Nike, Inc. "The time to act is now. The U.S. needs legislation that gives clean energy entrepreneurs an even playing field to compete globally for innovation and job creation."

 

Proposed climate change legislation could lead to an additional 26,000 green jobs in the next decade in Oregon, alone. In addition to creating thousands of new jobs, these green jobs come with a higher salary and will help grow the state’s economy by about $1.4 billion. If these figures were nationalized, up to 1.7 million new green jobs could be created by climate change legislation. These jobs could increase our nation’s GDP by $39 up to $111 billion.

 

Other events planned along the virtual race include:

Details about these events are not yet available. However, the Race for American Jobs & Clean Energy Leadership website will have updated event information listed once the details have been announced.