'Made in America' tour to stop in Philadelphia

With no less urgent a message than this one - that the nation's economic future is at stake - labor and environmental leaders today will launch a 22-state "Made in America" jobs tour that will include a stop in Philadelphia, likely later this month.

The main purpose of the tour, which will end in late September with a rally in Pittsburgh, is to emphasize that a clean-energy economy "is the next industrial foundation for America," said Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers of America.

"We've got to change the direction, from those [jobs] that can create wealth by manipulating markets to those that can create real wealth by making things," Gerard said in a conference call yesterday to announce the tour. "I've had enough of Wall Street throwing up on my shoes because they've pigged out at the candy store."

Maggie L. Fox, president and chief executive officer of the Alliance for Climate Protection, said during the conference call that the green economy "is a surefire way to put our country back to work."

The tour will be part advocacy, part education, to underscore that America "needs a new 21st-century economic plan," said Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union.

The tour's start will be in Ohio, a state slammed especially hard by the recession, at a wind-turbine demonstration project set up outside Cleveland Browns Stadium.

With 8,000 moving parts and 200 tons of steel, the turbine is just one example of the potential manufacturing opportunities offered by the clean-energy economy, Gerard said. The irony, he added, is that "80 percent of our wind turbines are imported from offshore."

"That's not acceptable," he said. "We have to do that [manufacturing work] here in America."

Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, emphasized that critical to the jobs-creation effort is passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which has been approved by the U.S. House and awaits action in the Senate. The legislation aims to generate jobs, make America more energy-independent, and reduce global warming pollution.

Representatives from her group will be on the "Made in America" tour, Beinecke said, to "tell our elected leaders that Americans want action on clean energy and climate . . . and to move this bill in the fall in the Senate."

Others participating in the conference call said the bill needed to require more use of renewable energy and to better ensure that the nation's clean-energy projects would use parts made in America.

The jobs tour will take different forms and could range from rallies to visits to green businesses. It is sponsored by the Alliance for Climate Protection's Repower America campaign and the Blue Green Alliance, a partnership of labor unions and environmental organizations focused on expanding the number and quality of jobs in the clean-energy economy.