High Desert Region Green Jobs Initiative, Executive Director opposes Prop 23

Oct. 23, 2010 - PRLog -- SACRAMENTO– Minority businesses would be among the hardest hit by Proposition 23’s devastating economic consequences, leaders of the California Black Chamber of Commerce and local African American chambers of commerce said Friday.
The ballot measure aims to undo California’s landmark clean energy law and threatens the state’s clean energy sector, one of the few growing areas of the economy.
“California’s leadership in clean energy is creating billions of dollars in economic opportunities and hundreds of thousands of jobs,” said Aubry Stone, President of the California Black Chamber of Commerce. “Minority owned businesses are getting in on the economic action, with an explosion of jobs and contracting opportunities in the utility sector, construction sector, and more.”
Stone also said minority families will bear the brunt of the health dangers posed by Proposition 23. “It’s well documented that communities of color are disproportionately impacted by pollution and smog. And minority families are struggling the worst because of the recession,” Stone said.
Ann Bouligny, a Board Member with the North Bay Black Chamber of Commerce, said the Bay Area – like all of California – is seeing an explosion of clean energy jobs.
“These jobs and investments located in California specifically because of California’s landmark clean energy law. But Prop 23 will repeal our clean energy law and change the playing field. It will turn our clean energy boom into a bust, and jeopardize jobs and our economic growth,” Bouligny said.
California is home to 12,000 clean energy businesses and 500,000 clean energy jobs, said Lionel M. Dew, President, Victor Valley African American Chamber of Commerce.
“Many of these jobs are available to workers up and down the career and skills ladder, from manufacturing jobs, to construction jobs to engineers and scientists. Prop. 23 jeopardizes all those jobs, and all those investments. That’s why our organization and hundreds of businesses oppose Prop. 23,” Dew said.
Kenneth C. Collins, High Desert Region Green Jobs Initiative, said: “Millions of construction work hours and thousands of new businesses will be created right here in our region because California’s landmark clean energy law has made us a magnet for the renewable energy industry,” Collins said. “Just as fossil fuel drove the economy of the late 19th and 20th centuries, renewable energy will drive the economy, and the jobs, in the 21st century.”

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The High Desert Region Green Jobs Initiative is a strategic demand-driven Initiative that links economic and workforce development to advance the green economy in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Southern Kern counties. The Initiative will be achieved through public/private partnerships and guided by a collaboration of the private sector, government, and community-based organizations addressing career development, job training, labor, educational institutions, youth, and under and unemployed adults.