Week of visits and meetings to culminate in “Green Jobs Showcase”

SAINT PAUL [4/21/08] - This morning, candidate for U.S. Senate Al Franken hops into his hybrid Ford Escape and heads down to Faribault to kick off a week of tours, meetings, and events designed to highlight an important part of his agenda: Developing a “green” economy sector that will create good Minnesota jobs.

“Global warming presents an urgent crisis for us all,” said Franken. “But, for Minnesota, there is tremendous opportunity to be found in renewable energy and energy efficiency technology. These are common-sense, win-win solutions.”

Throughout the week, Al will tour schools, businesses, and developments working to create green jobs in Minnesota. He’ll be holding listening sessions and roundtables in Faribault, Zimmerman, the Twin Cities, and suburbs.

“Washington has had eight years to do something, and it’s only gotten worse. Here in Minnesota,” he said, “we feel the cost of Washington’s failure every time we fill up at the pump, every time we open our electric bills, every time we see some other country benefiting from technology we could have been developing right here in Minnesota.”

Franken will lay out ideas for taking advantage of Minnesota’s natural and intellectual resources, including increased investment in research and development (with a special focus on green buildings, energy-efficient transit options, and renewable energy sources), a cap-and-trade system designed to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by the year 2050, and the reversal of the Bush-Coleman tax subsidies for Big Oil.

Franken added, “When I’m in Washington, we’ll build a “green” economy that creates Minnesota jobs and benefits Minnesota consumers.”

The tour will culminate in a “Green Jobs Showcase” next Sunday in Minneapolis to highlight Minnesota-grown technologies that can put us at the forefront of an emerging global green economy and create jobs here in Minnesota.

For a hi-res headshot of Al, go here:
http://www.alfranken.com/page/content/media

This entry was posted on Monday, April 21st, 2008 at 11:08 and is filed under Press Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.