As work begins on a near-term aid package, no resource should be spared to support Americans in the fight against COVID-19. We will also face critical choices on the needed investments to bring tens of millions of people on unemployment back into the workforce.
How will we decide to rebuild our economy? Will we attempt to simply rebuild what we had, an economy with long stagnant wages and a widening wealth gap, powered by fossil fuels that threaten our planet? Or will we use this opportunity to try and build an economy more resilient, safer and more sustainable for the American people?
This is a unique moment and we must make bold choices. I believe we must choose to make a transformational investment in a green economy that not only delivers an economic recovery, but also serves as a down payment on our efforts to tackle the climate and environmental crises we face.
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The oil and gas industry is drowning in all-time high debt. Coal is already in steep decline. The fracking and oil shale booms were fueled by cheap debt and years of easy credit, dependent on expensive oil and access to international markets. That bill comes due when those markets return to cheaper energy from countries such as Russia and Saudi Arabia, leading to waves of layoffs and bankruptcies.
The recent steps taken by the Trump administration to waive environmental enforcement during a pandemic, roll back fuel economy standards, and initiate a fire sale of cheap oil and gas leases will not put the economy on a firm footing. The boom and bust nature of the fossil fuel industry is not sustainable. Not even the Fed can bail out the planet.
No ordinary spark will restart the economy. We need a lightning bolt. Our stimulus must focus on shovel-ready projects in job intensive industries that can create jobs quickly for people out of work, bend the carbon curve, and cut air pollution that threatens the public health of frontline communities.
There are many infrastructure needs: ports, water utilities, the electric grid, mass transit, homes, buildings, and manufacturing. The good news is there is no shortage of ideas that members of Congress have put forward to invest in our infrastructure while reducing pollution and creating green jobs.
The U.S. energy efficiency industry already directly supports 2.38 million jobs, more than the oil, gas, and coal industries combined. More than half of these jobs are in the construction industry. Households spend $230 billion annually on home energy consumption. Small businesses spend $60 billion. A massive investment in weatherizing millions of homes and buildings can create hundreds of thousands of jobs in communities and put billions of dollars back into the hands of households and businesses. It would also boost small business, since businesses with less than 20 employees make up 79 percent of energy efficiency employers.
Millions of our homes and buildings are also dependent on gas for appliances and heating, which is untenable for seriously addressing climate change. Explosive gas is piped through decades old, often leaky, pipelines and burned in our stoves and heaters. Children living in a home with a gas cookstove have a 42-percent increased risk of asthma. Analysis has found that electrifying 100 percent of all buildings in California could support more than 100,000 fulltime workers in the construction industry. A national electrification effort would support hundreds of thousands more.
A program of Apollo-level ambition to reach 100 percent clean energy in the electric sector by 2035 would complete the decarbonization of our buildings and create millions of jobs. The solar, wind, geothermal, and battery storage industries already collectively support 437,498 jobs, despite accounting for only 9.5 percent of our energy generation in 2019. The entire electric sector, including fossil fuels, employs 896,800 people. Vastly increasing the amount of clean energy generation would have a tremendous economic impact from the coasts to the heartland.
Providing these examples is only scratching the surface. A stimulus can focus on advanced vehicle manufacturing, modernization of our power grid, micro-grids to strengthen communities from disasters, the electrification of our ports, regenerative agriculture by small farmers and much more. We can tie this infrastructure funding to the creation of prevailing wage and union jobs that provide good health care and benefits. We can strategically invest in distressed and underserved communities.
Rather than trying to force jobs back into the declining fossil fuel economy as the president is doing, a green stimulus can provide the necessary support to transition workers who have lost their jobs into job intensive green industries that won’t go boom and bust based on the whims of the Saudis and Russians. This next stimulus bill – tasked with putting millions of Americans back to work – presents the once-in-a-generation opportunity to do it.
We have to get this right. There are no do overs. We know the importance of listening to our scientists. We must understand the consequences of acting too late. This cannot be a lost decade for our economy or our planet.
Congress must lead.
Congresswoman Nanette Diaz Barragán represents the 44th District of California in the U.S. House of Representatives. She is a member of on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and serves as the Co-Chair of the United for Climate and Environmental Justice Task Force.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was higher in late-morning trading, helped by strength in energy stocks, while U.S. stock markets also moved up.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 34.91 points at 23,736.98.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 178.05 points at 41,800.13. The S&P 500 index was up 28.38 points at 5,661.47, while the Nasdaq composite was up 133.17 points at 17,725.30.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.56 cents US compared with 73.57 cents US on Monday.
The November crude oil contract was up 68 cents at US$69.70 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up three cents at US$2.40 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was down US$7.80 at US$2,601.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was up a penny at US$4.28 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Canada’s inflation rate fell to two per cent last month, finally hitting the Bank of Canada’s target after a tumultuous battle with skyrocketing price growth.
The annual inflation rate fell from 2.5 per cent in July to reach the lowest level since February 2021.
Statistics Canada’s consumer price index report on Tuesday attributed the slowdown in part to lower gasoline prices.
Clothing and footwear prices also decreased on a month-over-month basis, marking the first decline in the month of August since 1971 as retailers offered larger discounts to entice shoppers amid slowing demand.
The Bank of Canada’s preferred core measures of inflation, which strip out volatility in prices, also edged down in August.
The marked slowdown in price growth last month was steeper than the 2.1 per cent annual increase forecasters were expecting ahead of Tuesday’s release and will likely spark speculation of a larger interest rate cut next month from the Bank of Canada.
“Inflation remains unthreatening and the Bank of Canada should now focus on trying to stimulate the economy and halting the upward climb in the unemployment rate,” wrote CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham.
Benjamin Reitzes, managing director of Canadian rates and macro strategist at BMO, said Tuesday’s figures “tilt the scales” slightly in favour of more aggressive cuts, though he noted the Bank of Canada will have one more inflation reading before its October rate announcement.
“If we get another big downside surprise, calls for a 50 basis-point cut will only grow louder,” wrote Reitzes in a client note.
The central bank began rapidly hiking interest rates in March 2022 in response to runaway inflation, which peaked at a whopping 8.1 per cent that summer.
The central bank increased its key lending rate to five per cent and held it at that level until June 2024, when it delivered its first rate cut in four years.
A combination of recovered global supply chains and high interest rates have helped cool price growth in Canada and around the world.
Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem recently signalled that the central bank is ready to increase the size of its interest rate cuts, if inflation or the economy slow by more than expected.
Its key lending rate currently stands at 4.25 per cent.
CIBC is forecasting the central bank will cut its key rate by two percentage points between now and the middle of next year.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is also expected on Wednesday to deliver its first interest rate cut in four years.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
FREDERICTON – New Brunswick‘s finance minister says the province recorded a surplus of $500.8 million for the fiscal year that ended in March.
Ernie Steeves says the amount — more than 10 times higher than the province’s original $40.3-million budget projection for the 2023-24 fiscal year — was largely the result of a strong economy and population growth.
The report of a big surplus comes as the province prepares for an election campaign, which will officially start on Thursday and end with a vote on Oct. 21.
Steeves says growth of the surplus was fed by revenue from the Harmonized Sales Tax and federal money, especially for health-care funding.
Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs has promised to reduce the HST by two percentage points to 13 per cent if the party is elected to govern next month.
Meanwhile, the province’s net debt, according to the audited consolidated financial statements, has dropped from $12.3 billion in 2022-23 to $11.8 billion in the most recent fiscal year.
Liberal critic René Legacy says having a stronger balance sheet does not eliminate issues in health care, housing and education.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
