Obama Announces Plan to Train 75,000 Solar Workers

[IDemo]

Source: NBC

The White House has announced a goal to train 75,000 workers in the solar industry by 2020, many of them veterans. "These are good-paying jobs that are helping folks enter the middle-class," President Barack Obama said on Friday at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. The plan will expand on the Department of Energy SunShot Initiative's Solar Instructor Training Network currently running at more than 400 community colleges. The White House also announced the Solar Ready Vets program aimed at helping veterans transition into the solar industry. A joint program between the Department of Defense and the DOE, it's currently being launched at 10 military bases across the country, including Hill Air Force Base and Camp Pendleton in California.

Obama touted the new goal as a way to bolster the economy and help meet the White House's climate change goals, which call for greenhouse gas emissions to be cut 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. The solar industry is creating jobs at a rate of 10 times faster than the overall economy, the White House said. Obama announced the new program the same day the March jobs report was released showing the most sluggish U.S. employment growth since December 2013.



Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/white-house-announces-plan-train-75-000-solar-workers-n335351

[Joe Magarac]

1. Sounds like another corporate welfare deal.

When will you guys learn?

[IDemo]

2. Oil roughneck apprenticeships more to your liking? n/t

[Tarheel_Dem]

8. What exactly should we "learn" Joe?

[freshwest]

17. How to go to war for the fossil fuel industry? Are people grieving the 30 KXL jobs Obama vetoed?

BTW, should we just screw those 75K vets for the Koches?

Bad Obama!

TBH, those are all rhetorical questions. I know you know the answers to all of them.

[Joe Magarac]

20. OK do it your way ...

Funnel money to "green" projects that go nowhere and keep burning oil while denouncing it.

[IronLionZion]

24. Whatever it is you learned,

how's it working out for you?

[Cha]

25. Oh, so you're anti-Environement and Pro big Oil? Or you just want to take

an ignorant pot-shot at the President?

[WillTwain]

32. Blatant Cheap Shot

How can more 75000 solar workers be bad?

[tabasco]

28. Why do you hate vets, Joe?

I'm a vet and I'm looking into this. Looks like a good deal for everybody.



First class of graduating "Solar Marines."

How sad that someone's hatred of the President can make them hate veterans and all of America.

[tabasco]

29. Might wanna read up on those corporate welfare deals, Joe

After Solyndra Loss, U.S. Energy Loan Program Turning A Profit

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/13/363572151/after-solyndra-loss-u-s-energy-loan-program-turning-a-profit

I still wonder why someone would be so virulently opposed to a well-conceived veterans jobs program. I can only assume they hate America and veterans.

[mackdaddy]

31. Solyndra total loss $535million. At the time we were spending $2Billion a day, every day

on the wonderful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We were blowing more money by 10am on any one day than the total for Solyndra. And the war went on day after day for years at $2billion a day.

Of course the Solyndra Loans were finalized under Bush, but that is just a detail.

[msongs]

3. will any of them be US citizens or all h1B imports nt

[forest444]

4. Bingo. That's my only real misgiving about announcements like the one above.

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2015/01/25/will-obama-bring-more-h-1b-visas-for-indias-skilled-workers/

[cascadiance]

35. Send this to Elizabeth Warren's and Bernie Sanders' office...

... and tell her that any immigration bills that come up need to make sure that these H-1B giveaways don't happen.

I don't want to take stances AGAINST Indians coming here to work, as I like the diversity in our industry, and some of my best friends are those from countries that have come here under such programs, but I really think that the exploitive nature of the programs we have in place both of the lower salaries they get and what we as American workers get (along with reduced number of jobs that we can get) is what needs fixing.

If we just say NO to expansion of H-1B program, and say that if companies want foreign workers they should be encouraging them to immigrate here rather than just work under "indentured servant" terms that the H-1B program has in place.

I'm out of work again, and have been having to chase mostly contract jobs over the last few years with this economy and these exploitive programs, etc. in place. If America wants another big growth in the economy that the technology and internet boom brought to us in the 80's and the 90's, they need to take down this crap. As long as we just train workers to come here temporarily and go back to other countries instead of the traditional American dream of having immigrants coming here to permanently be a part of the American dream, this is going to happen. And that coupled with expensive college education, is keeping a whole younger generation of Americans from participating in the tech sector like they used to, and having the capitol of high tech moving permanently to Bangalore, India instead of Silicon Valley.

The only entities that are gaining are the 1%ers both here and in India that exploit these lower salaries, etc. that are a part of the system we have now that allow for a huge race to the bottom that companies have benefitted from when they seek instead to reward those at the top rather than those doing the work in all countries.

[whathehell]

27. Excellent point. n/t

[Hekate]

36. American veterans will be trained, are being trained now.

[sheshe2]

5. I would like to say I am shocked...

At the negative snarky comment you have received, well to of them anyway. Sadly I am not.

Thanks IDemo! KnR~

The White House also announced the Solar Ready Vets program aimed at helping veterans transition into the solar industry. A joint program between the Department of Defense and the DOE, it's currently being launched at 10 military bases across the country, including Hill Air Force Base and Camp Pendleton in California.

[IDemo]

9. Thanks, sheshe. Here's what we know so far about the program-

It will target illegal aliens brought over the border under cover of darkness and handed education vouchers by Border Patrol agents. It was designed by scientists under the pay of oil companies knowing that its certain failure will further their goal of a Humvee in every garage.

It's Solyndra-Benghazi Argle Bargle, and patriotic Americans demand an answer!!11

[sheshe2]

10. Lol~

You summed that up in a nutshell, IDem!

Thanks for the great OP!

[awoke_in_2003]

34. I KNEW IT...

[JDPriestly]

6. My husband and I here in Los Angeles were just saying this morning that next time we

need a new roof, we will switch to solar and get our house rewired and switched to all electric. Makes good economic sense for us.

[Tarheel_Dem]

7. K&R

[sheshe2]

11. KnR

[7962]

12. Imagine how many there'd be if we'd simply kept Jimmy Carter's programs going??

Solar since 78??

[groundloop]

19. EXACTLY !!!! If it weren't for that senile B-movie actor we'd be decades ahead

Those bastards just absolutely hated anything which was accomplished by a Democrat and couldn't stand the thought of it succeeding.

[7962]

22. We'd be in the lead in solar instead of China nt

[tabasco]

30. Carter was right and Reagan and the corrupt republicans ridiculed him

Carter is a true patriot and tried to set this nation on a path to a better future.

Nitwit b-actor Reagan and his corrupt, evil masters would have nothing of that!

[shebolleth]

13. That's our future

I'm with Obama.

[IDemo]

14. Welcome to DU, shebolleth

Happy to have you here.

[sheshe2]

15. shebolleth~

Welcome to DU!

[sheshe2]

16. Kick!

Joining Forces ✔ @JoiningForces
Follow

RT to share the news: 10 bases will work to train transitioning military personnel for clean-energy jobs ? http://go.wh.gov/GLVLir
1:07 PM - 3 Apr 2015

Joining Forces ✔ @JoiningForces
Follow

"We’re also going to work with states to enable more veterans to use the Post-9/11 GI Bill I signed into law for solar jobs training" —Obama
1:05 PM - 3 Apr 2015

http://theobamadiary.com/

[newfie11]

18. About damn time! Nt

[kelliekat44]

21. Why don't you anti-Obama folks just read about the proposed plan before typing stupid?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-touts-ambitious-solar-jobs-initiative-in-conservative-utah/2015/04/03/70ec8dce-da12-11e4-8103-fa84725dbf9d_story.html?wprss=rss_national

[Hekate]

37. Aw, stop it, you're making too much sense.

[Politicub]

23. Awesome

Regulations drive job creation to meet demand.

[Cha]

26. Pic~ President Obama and the Solar Panels..

President Barack Obama is given a tour of solar panels on the roof of the Department of Energy (DOE). With President Obama (L-R) are DOE HQ Energy Manager Eric Haukdal, DOE Deputy Secretary Liz Sherwood and Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of Energy Kate Brandt

Mahalo, IDemo~

[Blue_Tires]

33. k+r