In an effort to head off former Sen. Rick Santorum’s push on manufacturing in the key Super Tuesday state of Ohio, Mitt Romney this morning announced an “Ohio Manufacturers for Romney” coalition. A search of Recovery.gov shows that the corporations of two members of the group received nearly $1.6 million in Recovery Act funds.
In a hearing to mark up Republican legislation to expedite the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) accused the foreign company TransCanada of misleading the American public that the pipeline would be built with American steel.
Doyle submitted an amendment that challenged TransCanada to certify its claim that 75 percent of the pipe comes from North America is actually true. Discussing his amendment, Doyle expressed his frustration about his attempts to get a straight answer from the tar sands company about where the steel for the 1700-mile pipe was made. Doyle found that the Indian company Welspun Corp appears to be the pipeline supplier, using its Little Rock facilities to store India-manufactured pipe and steel. “I don’t believe there’s a lick of US or Canada steel in this pipeline,” Doyle said:
I’m asking for a bit of truth in advertising here. It’s been my frustration throughout this debate. We hear a lot of claims about the pipeline and I just want to be honest with the American people. My amendment just says this: TransCanada has told us they have made every effort to source as much steel through North American mills as they can. I’m simply asking them to certify that claim. Through my little amateur investigation, I don’t believe there’s a lick of US or Canada steel in this pipeline. But I would love to be proved wrong.
Watch it:
Doyle revealed that he found that 148 miles of pipe have already been constructed in India and shipped to Welspun’s subsidiary Welspun Tubular in Little Rock, AR.
The United Steelworkers oppose the pipeline, as another case of manufacturing outsourcing by multinational companies.
Update
After Doyle’s and other Democratic amendments were rejected, the Republican leadership approved Rep. Lee Terry’s (R-NE) bill to force approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, joined by Jim Matheson (D-UT), John Barrow (D-GA) and Mike Ross (D-AR). Charlie Bass (R-NH) was the only Republican to oppose the foreign tar sands project.
Update
“This legislation forcing approval of the Keystone XL pipeline isn’t about jobs or national security,” responds Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Instead, it’s about the corrupting influence of money in Congress and the willingness of congressional Republicans to do the bidding of Big Oil. If it’s built, Keystone XL will foul our land, air, and water and put us on a dangerous trajectory toward climate catastrophe.”
By Climate Guest Blogger on Jan 25, 2012 at 4:58 pm
How to Build America’s Energy Future
Schott Solar employee trims a photovoltaic panel in a glass room at the company's plant in Albuquerque, NM. A strong clean energy industry will give rise to more American manufacturing jobs and in turn will help rebuild our struggling middle class and create a more sustainable and fair economy. AP Photo
by Kate Gordon
President Barack Obama last night presented in his State of the Union address a blueprint for sustained growth in our economy consisting of four key parts: manufacturing, energy, worker preparedness, and American values. When it comes to America’s global leadership on clean energy, these four are inextricably linked.
A strong clean energy industry will give rise to more American manufacturing jobs, especially for skilled workers. This in turn will help rebuild our struggling middle class and reinforce the basic American idea that the economy must work for everyone, not just a wealthy few. Here’s how the four parts work together to build what the president says is an economy that can last.
Scaling up America’s clean energy sector
America is already in a leadership position on clean energy. In 2011 we reclaimed the title of “World’s Largest Energy Investor” from China. U.S. investment in these technologies rose a staggering 33 percent to nearly $60 billion, whereas investment in China remained steady at about $47 billion. Globally, U.S. venture capital dominates the cutting-edge clean energy investment market, with U.S. venture dollars accounting for 76 percent of the $2.2 billion in clean-technology venture investments across the world in 2011. Visionary programs such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s targeted subsidies to renewable energy developers have catapulted us into this leadership position, and contributed to bringing renewable energies to a place where they are nearly cost-competitive with the much more established, much longer-subsidized traditional fossil fuels.
The president’s energy recommendations in his State of the Union address will continue this trend. As my colleague Dan Weiss writes, the speech included important recommendations to increase renewable energy development on public lands, provide incentives to businesses to upgrade their buildings and factories, and support the U.S. Navy in its goal of making the largest purchase of renewable energy in history. President Obama also called on Congress to show similar leadership by passing a clean energy standard, and by finally extending the Production Tax Credit for clean energy development.
With all the stories about China dominating the solar photovoltaics (PV) manufacturing sector, you might not think that America is a net exporter of solar products. But it is — to the tune of $1.8 billion. That’s a $1 billion increase over net exports documented in the solar sector last year.
In fact, a report released this morning from GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association found that the U.S. has a $247 million trade surplus with China.
U.S. imports in 2010 were estimated at $1.4 billion, while exports were estimated to be between $1.7 billion – $2.0 billion based on the availability of data for capital equipment sales. This made the U.S. a net exporter of solar goods to China by $247 million to $539 million. Imports came predominantly from modules ($1.2 billion), while exports were driven by capital equipment ($708 million to $1 billion) and polysilicon ($873 million).
Solar isn’t just about the module. When looking at polysilicon production, equipment for manufacturing lines, power electronics, solar hot water tanks, and any number of other domestically-produced products, the U.S. actually offers a good-sized contribution to the global market.
The 2011 Solar Energy Trade Assessment is a follow up from last year’s report, which found U.S. net exports in 2009 were worth $723 million.
The $1 billion surge in net exports came during a year when the U.S. solar market grew by over 100%. Due to the successful Treasury Grant Program and Loan Guarantee Program that made it easier for developers and manufacturers to finance facilities, the solar sector grew faster than ever before.
And all that solar — particularly solar PV — brings immense value to the domestic economy.
Twitter-challenged Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich went on Sean Hannity’s radio show yesterday where he attacked President Obama’s economic policies and called for “put[ting] Americans back to work” by rebuilding “American manufacturing.” “We can’t have a national security system if we don’t make anything,” Gingirch said, “so our very survival as a country requires us to rebuild our manufacturing base.” Listen here:
While Gingrich is right to call for more American manufacturing, he apparently isn’t interested in contributing to this vital industry himself, as his campaign’s t-shirts are made in El Salvador, ABC News discovered last week. His campaign blamed the embarrassing fact on the campaign’s “volunteers.”
“That’s a pretty inexcusable freshman campaign mistake,” Scott Paul of the Alliance for American Manufacturing said of Gingrich and the other GOP presidential candidates whose swag is not “Made in the U.S.A.”
In the latest embarrassment for Newt Gingrich’s floundering presidential campaign, an ABC producer discovered that Gingrich’s campaign T-shirts are not being made in America, but in El Salvador, even as Gingrich spends his time on the campaign trail calling American manufacturing “crucial” to the economy’s future. Gingich has also slammed the Obama administration for being “anti-manufacturing.”
According to the producer, Gingrich had originally said he would make sure his campaign gear was manufactured in America. Gingrich was confronted about the gear on the campaign trail as he awkwardly held up one of the shirts in question:
ABC: I just picked up that one and it was made in El Salvador…It was a big thing when we talked to your campaign people about how you wanted things to be made in America, do you have plans to change things?
GINGRICH: I have no — I’ll have to ask the folks who ordered this. I don’t order it and I don’t do it.
CAMPAIGN SPOKESPERSON: That was a rush order made by some of the volunteers.
GINGRICH: One of the challenges with a volunteer campaign is lots of volunteers do lots of different things.
Watch it:
Gingrich spokesperson Michelle Selesky tried to intervene by throwing the blame on campaign volunteers. Gingrich quickly took the cue and echoed her excuse.
On the campaign trail, Gingrich has repeatedly called for a resurgence in American manufacturing. He has denounced the EPA, the National Labor Relations Board and other agencies and regulations for “killing manufacturing jobs.” However, in March, Gingrich also made a misstep when he said that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) worked because it created jobs — in Mexico and Canada.
By the end of this year, solar PV production capacity will be at 50 GW (50,000 MW), up from 100 MW in 2000. That’s reason to celebrate on this International Solar Day.
But it’s also important to remember the implications of that growth. Solar PV manufacturing uses all kinds of toxic chemicals and materials that should be recycled. Many solar companies have take-back programs that minimize waste. But independent groups have called for mandatory recycling of panels.
Greentech Media had a piece on the issue this week:
Our guest blogger is Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Manufacturing is important to the economy and, especially, to the economic recovery. From its most recent low point in December 2009, manufacturing has added nearly a quarter of a million (243,000) new jobs. But not this month: In May, manufacturing shed 5,000 jobs.
One month of bad data isn’t typically something to write home about. The severe weather in the Midwest and South and the lingering supply chain effects of the Japanese tsunami might have played a role (although the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that’s not likely).
But combined with other news, this is a sobering statistic. Earlier this week, the Institute for Supply Management reported that while the index of economic activity in the manufacturing sector expended in May for the 22nd straight month, the index was sharply lower than in April. And, in May, auto sales were down by 3.7 percent year over year. Combine that with too-low economic growth, and the picture gets a bit grimmer.
What will it take to revive U.S. manufacturing? Well, a good place to start would be to have a plan. A good plan would encourage domestic production and make investments in new technologies that will be the future of manufacturing, like green energy.
A wind turbine blade is unveiled during the opening of the Vestas blade factory in Colorado.
The United States has historically been a leader in invention and innovation; however, our leadership in manufacturing has fallen dramatically, hurting our ability to compete on the global stage. With the dawn of a new era in the energy sector, America has a unique opportunity to grow its economy and create new jobs while reducing emissions and combating climate change.
A new report on low-carbon innovation written by Bracken Hendricks, Lisbeth Kaufman and Sean Pool of the Center for American Progress outlines how this transition may unfold.
In a hearing to mark up Republican legislation to expedite the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) accused the foreign company TransCanada of misleading the American public that the pipeline would be built with American steel. 
Manufacturing is 
