Rep Magaziner unveils one of his first major pieces of legislation, the Clean Energy Workforce Act
“This is to help build a talent pipeline for the growing clean energy industry, and also to help young people have pathways to good-paying careers and good jobs.”
United States Representative Seth Magaziner (Democrat, Rhode Island District 2) announced on Mondy the introduction of his bipartisan Clean Energy Workforce Act, which will create a grant program to fund career and technical education (CTE) to connect Rhode Islanders to good-paying jobs in the clean energy economy. This legislation is supported by union leaders, environmental advocates, and career and technical education program coordinators across Rhode Island.1
“This is one of the first major pieces of legislation that I've introduced since taking office in Congress,” said Representative Magaziner during a phone interview with this reporter and Mary Serreze from Providence Business First. “This is to help build a talent pipeline for the growing clean energy industry, and also to help young people have pathways to good-paying careers and good jobs.”
Representative Magaziner continued:
“I'm proud of the fact that it's a bipartisan bill. I have a Republican co-lead, which I can tell you is no small feat these days when the bill has the words clean energy in the title. His name is James Moylan.
“He's from Guam, which bears a little bit of explaining. Representatives from the territories, like Guam, basically have all of the rights of other members of Congress, except that under the Constitution they're not allowed to vote on the final passage of a bill. But they can introduce bills, participate in committees, vote in committees, vote on amendments, and participate in debates. 95% of what the rest of us can do, they're able to do, including introducing bills. We have, I think, about 25 co-sponsors overall.
“This bill would provide funding for career and technical education [CTE] programs that are focused on the clean energy industry. It would initially invest a hundred million dollars in two parts. One part would be to help CTE programs develop curricula that can help young people build skills specifically for clean energy jobs. And then the other would be for funding for facilities for CTE programs in the clean energy space.
“I know a little bit about this from my time as state treasurer. One of the things I worked on as the treasurer was putting together the state school construction program. One of the issues that we kept running into there was that there was a lot of demand for career and technical education programs in the high schools, but the facilities needed to be updated to give students an accurate representation of the work that they'll be doing once they get to the workforce.
“Some of the money would go to helping to develop curricula. The other part would go toward facilities, and there are a range of different entities that would be eligible to get the funding. School districts that run CTE programs would be eligible, including school districts in Rhode Island, but also post-secondary CTE programs as well. Also apprenticeships, apprenticeship programs, community colleges, et cetera. The intent and the language of the bill is to develop labs to develop spaces where young people can be trained to be electricians or otherwise work in the clean energy space.”
“The clean energy sector is filled with good-paying jobs that do not require a traditional college degree but do require specialized training,” said Representative Magaziner. “By investing in training pipelines to develop a clean energy workforce, we can ensure that working people in Rhode Island and across the nation are equipped for the jobs of today and tomorrow.”
“It is imperative that we continue to build a strong clean energy workforce while investing in sustainable infrastructure built with highly skilled union tradespeople. The Clean Energy Workforce Act not only accelerates our transition to a clean energy future but it focuses investments where it is most important, our students,” said Erica Hammond, Field Director of Climate Jobs Rhode Island, in a statement.
“SkillsUSA is America’s proud champion of the skilled trades,” said Joshua Klemp, Executive Director, SkillsUSA Rhode Island in a statement. “We applaud this initiative by Congressman Magaziner as it demonstrates a proactive approach towards addressing the growing demand for skilled professionals in the renewable energy sector. Through collaboration with stakeholders, innovative teaching methodologies, and a focus on inclusivity, the program aims to create impactful and accessible educational pathways for students interested in pursuing careers in clean energy.”
Upon passage, the Clean Energy Workforce Act will invest $100 million in the creation of two new grant programs:
Clean Energy Curriculum Development Grants program supports CTE programs in developing curricula for emerging careers in clean energy, renewable energy, energy efficiency, climate change mitigation, or climate change adaptation.
The Renewable Energy Facilities Grants program provides CTE programs with funds to upgrade existing facilities, develop new facilities, and acquire new educational equipment to improve energy efficiency or convert to renewable energy.
Here’s the rest of the interview with representative Magaziner:
Steve Ahlquist: And do you see this as a continuation of the work you were doing as treasurer?
Seth Magaziner: Yeah, in part, for sure. Certainly, my experience working on school construction as treasurer gave me some understanding of the importance of the physical space, but the curricula and the training for teachers matter as well. The primary motivation here is that there are a lot of job opportunities in this space that are unfilled. One of the fastest growing categories of jobs in the entire country is a wind turbine technician, both offshore like we have here in Rhode Island, and also onshore. These are permanent jobs. It's not just upfront construction jobs. They require training, but they don't require a four-year degree and they can pay well, a wind turbine technician working offshore here in Rhode Island can make easily $60 or 70,000 a year as a base salary, plus more with overtime. Those are the types of jobs that we want to train people for.
Steve Ahlquist: What are the direct benefits for Rhode Island and presumably Guam? What would that look like?
Seth Magaziner: The direct benefits are that places that take advantage of this funding will be able to create better opportunities for young people to get good jobs and will also help attract good jobs. As these industries grow, they're going to choose to locate in places where they can attract and retain a high-quality workforce.
I should also note that the demand for CTE programs in the high schools here in Rhode Island is skyrocketing. That was something else we saw when we were doing the school construction work. The number of kids who were interested in CTE programs in general often exceeded the number of spots available, in part due to capacity constraints. Many young people want to go into these programs. They understand that they can graduate without student debt and get good jobs and good careers right away. And to do it in the industries of the future, I think, is something that a lot of young people find exciting - and rightfully so.
It's no secret that we have workforce shortages in this country, particularly in the skilled trades that are impacting many industries, and that includes the clean energy industry. When it comes to combating climate change, we can't afford delays. We have to move boldly. We have to move quickly here in the Ocean State. We understand the impact of climate change and the importance of decarbonization, but we also understand the economic opportunities that are associated with that as well. We've seen that here in Rhode Island with offshore wind. Workforce shortages don't just slow projects down. They also can increase the cost of those projects. If we want clean energy to be affordable for ratepayers, addressing workforce shortages is part of how we solve that.
Steve Ahlquist: You have support for this program but how much of that support is Republican support?
Seth Magaziner: Republican support is going to take a while to build, I will fully admit, in part because the oil and gas industry - and the traditional energy industry - have a lot of sway over the Republican caucus. Also, the Republican caucus in general has been pushing for funding cuts to education as opposed to new investments in education. That being said, I think career and technical education could be an area that's ripe for some bipartisanship. I think that even on the Republican side, they recognize that CTE programs are good investments, and all of us have blue-collar workers in our district. All of us have people who are struggling with student loan debt in our district. We can find some commonality across the aisle, but it's going to take some time. We're introducing this bill with about 25 co-sponsors.
That's a good number for a new bill that no one has seen before. And the fact that we have a Republican co-lead is also a big deal in this era of partisanship. That's not easy to do as a freshman with one of your first bills. So it's a start, and I believe we'll get there.
The bill will be referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce where we will hope to have a hearing, and I'll be lobbying my colleagues, trying to build support for it. And we've got some great organizational support: some of the labor unions and environmental groups, but also, talking about attracting support from the Republican side of the aisle, organizations like Skills USA are very well known in rural areas in the country, and some of those more conservative districts. So we're all going to work together in coalition to try to build support for the bill and hope to get it through committee and to the floor.
Mary Serreze: I have one final question. How does this fit into your overall strategy in DC as a politician?
Seth Magaziner: I mean, support for education, and CTE in particular, is something I campaigned on last year. To me this is working on an issue that I care about and that I think that we need here in Rhode Island to meet our clean energy goals, provide good career pathways for young people, and grow the economy. First and foremost, it's about trying to do a good thing and trying to pass a good policy. But as far as what it means for me in DC, I want to build a reputation in Washington as someone who is focused on policy and serious about getting things done. I'm not the kind of person that is going to be yelling and screaming on cable news every night. That's just not my style. I care more about rolling up my sleeves and doing the work. And so I hope that this will be an example of that and that my colleagues will take notice and it will lead to additional collaborations down the road.
Steve Ahlquist: I have one more, wider question. With the budget talks, are we going to avoid a big shutdown?
Seth Magaziner: I hope so. There was a big first step that you may have seen over the weekend where Speaker Johnson and Leader Schumer in the Senate agreed to what is called the top-line numbers, the overall spending that's going to be in the budget for both defense and non-defense. It was a welcome and necessary retreat by the House Republicans. They had been insisting on significant cuts to the top line number that would've been very damaging to programs that people rely on. It would probably have driven us into a recession as well. So the fact that they've dropped the demand for a big cut to the top line is a positive step forward, honoring the deal that was made between President Biden and then Speaker McCarthy last spring. They're adhering to that deal and that's good, but there's still a lot that can go wrong in the next couple of weeks as they flesh out the details of the budget.
The Republicans might try to put in poison pills that have nothing to do with the budget, for example, anti-abortion language or anti-LGBT language. They tried to do that earlier in the year when the House took up some appropriations bills. Not only are those policies that I very much disagree with, but also they have nothing to do with the budget and that's why they're called poison pills. Hopefully, they won't try to pull that again in the next couple of weeks. Also, we'll have to make sure that below-the-top-line programs that we care about can maintain their funding. Title One and Head Start funding for education and CTE and all the rest.
There are still a lot of things that could go wrong in the next couple of weeks, but I think the news this past weekend about the top line was a good step forward. Now it's a race against the clock to get this written in the next 10 days. I'm cautiously optimistic, but we'll obviously be keeping a close watch and advocating strongly for a clean budget that doesn't have any poison pills or any other problematic riders in it.
This bill is co-sponsored by 23 Democrat and Republican Members of Congress and is endorsed by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE), League of Conservation Voters, National Education Association (NEA), National Skills Coalition, National Wildlife Federation, Sierra Club, SkillsUSA, SkillsUSA Rhode Island, and U.S. House of Representative Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC).