ConservAmerica President Jeff Kupfer co-authored an op-ed in The Hill with Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions Executive Director Heather Reams discussing clean energy jobs losses due to COVID-19. They wrote that that legislation including America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act and the American Energy Innovation Act could help spur economic recovery and rebuild the sector’s workforce.
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Mounting job losses caused by the COVID-19 crisis are hammering the clean energy sector and threatening two decades’ worth of progress in expanding the share of renewable resources used to power the U.S. economy.
Mandatory stay-at-home orders and the shutting down of most businesses are squeezing all corners of the economy, and the 3.4 million Americans working in the clean energy sector—many of them in the construction trades—have been hit hard, too.
The clean energy sector lost nearly 600,000 jobs in March and April—17 percent of its workforce. That figure could top 850,000, or 25 percent of the sector’s talent pool, by the end of June if things continue as they are now, according to new analysis of Department of Labor data by E2 and BW Research Partnership. Fortunately, targeted, fiscally sound policy options are available to jumpstart this historically fast-growing sector and move clean energy forward as we recover.
With so much of the economy shut down and investors left waiting on the sidelines, clean energy companies are facing a capital liquidity crunch.
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Read the full editorial at The Hill.