The economy is doing better. Folks have been buying existing houses and spending a little more for Christmas. We’re not losing jobs as fast as we were. Oops – we’re not losing jobs as fast? The economy may be doing better but it’s not good. The economy won’t be good until we’re creating more jobs than we’re losing. Period. So, how do we create those jobs that will give us a strong economy? Infrastructure, transportation, weatherization, and conservation (of energy and environment) – that’s how.

Our bridges are falling down and so are our schools. Our drinking water system leaks like a sieve and we’re losing millions of gallons a day of potable water. Our utility grid loses half the electricity from generation site to use site. Fixing our infrastructure creates millions of jobs.

Our transportation network is dreadfully inefficient. Build light rail, double mpg for liquid-fuel vehicles, and phase in electric, hybrid, and hydrogen vehicles. From research to development to building to selling to maintaining there are millions of jobs upgrading transportation.

Our houses and other buildings are also leaky as sieves – it takes $2 to buy a dollar’s worth of heating/cooling due to air leaks. Full weatherization of our buildings – both retrofits and new builds creates another couple of million jobs.

Fossil fuels endanger our health, environment, and national security. We import some 60% of our petroleum, mostly from countries that don’t like us, and destroy our drinking water to mine coal. Both coal and oil are trashing our respiratory health. Converting to wind, solar, and non-food biofuels will solve those problems and generate more millions of jobs.

Our national parks and forests have over $8 billion backlogged maintenance projects. That’s a million summer CCC-type jobs for high school/college kids right there – and carbon sequestration to boot.

Energy creates jobs – making it, keeping it, reducing the need for it. The clean energy and security bill creates jobs needed to protect our national security, our national health, our national budget. Carbon cap and trade hitches the mules of Industry to our national economic plow. The jobs bill currently being worked out creates more. Millions of jobs are crying to be done and 15 million Americans are needing to do them. Shifting to a “green” economy will do the job of ending joblessness as well as the job of domestic security and the job of reducing pollution-caused illnesses. Lincoln, Pryor, and Boozman have jobs. Call them and tell them to get to work on the energy and jobs bills so the rest of America can, too.

Barbara Fitzpatrick
Fayetteville