In an effort to start a real national push for green jobs, U.S. Senate candidate Rodney Glassman today joined the newly minted EnergizeUS coalition, comprised of candidates running for office across the country — each committed to pursuing policies to expand alternative energy jobs and keep America secure.

The EnergizeUS coalition pledges not just to run on green jobs, but to form a caucus in the U.S. House and Senate to create a push for jobs in a new green economy.

John McCain has taken all sides of this issue but is best remembered for an energy plan reduced to three words: Drill baby, drill. He’s spending millions of Big Oil dollars in an effort to hold onto his seat, despite ignoring Arizona’s needs for 28 years in Washington.

“Arizona is perfectly positioned to cash in on the coming revolution in clean industry and needs a U.S. Senator committed to putting our state on the cutting edge of the new economy,” Glassman said.

Arizona receives fewer federal solar dollars than the city of Portland, Ore., in part because McCain has refused to fight to bring our tax dollars back to our state.

“I’m proud to to be part of this coalition of candidates committed to creating jobs and sending fewer dollars to oil-rich countries that bankroll America’s enemies,” Glassman said. “We should spend less money subsidizing Big Oil and invest more in alternative energy, like solar power, to the benefit of Arizona and America.”

Like the EnergizeUS Coalition on Facebook

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Although the Armed Forces is one of the few institutions in which women receive equal pay for equal work, when women veterans return to civilian life, they face unequal pay and disproportionately high rates of unemployment and homelessness. U.S. Senate candidate Rodney Glassman is calling for the creation of a Veteran Employment Discrimination Prevention (VEDP) office and various training and support programs targeted toward women service members and veterans.

“Women are an increasing segment of our Armed Forces,” said Glassman. “It is unconscionable that we allow them to return to civilian life only to face unfair wages and discrimination.”

“Despite his admirable military service, McCain has repeatedly and vocally opposed expanding health benefits for veterans and the 2008 GI Bill, which provided much-needed educational opportunities for our troops. McCain’s record protecting women’s rights has been hallmarked by his adamant objections to the Fair Pay Act, which advanced women’s rights to take legal action when employers are caught discriminating against women.”

Both men and women veterans face frequent employment discrimination after returning to civilian life, and women earn an average of $10,000 less per year than their male counterparts.

Over the last year, the unemployment rate for women veterans has nearly doubled to about 11 percent, and women veterans are about four times more likely to be homeless than male veterans.

“As a woman and a veteran, I truly appreciate Rodney’s focus on preventing veteran employment discrimination,” said Major Susan Parker-Hotchkiss (USAF, ret.). “This is exactly the type of leadership we need in Washington to ensure our service members have the opportunities they deserve when they return to civilian life.”

As part of a broader effort to address discrimination against all veterans and military service members, the proposed Veteran Employment Discrimination Prevention (VEDP) office would be housed within the Veterans’ Employment and Training Services (VETS) agency of the U.S. Department of Labor.

The VEDP would provide the following services:

• Operate a central hotline for veterans to report and seek information regarding veteran employment discrimination;
• Proactively inform veterans and service members of their legal rights to fair and equitable employment;
• Allow attorneys to register in a database, so veterans and service members can access proper legal resources within their communities; and
• Offer a specialized course on identifying and reporting veteran employment discrimination through the Transition Assistance Program (TAP).

Glassman is also seeking to broaden the range of services provided to service members and veterans by establishing the following:

• Expand counseling and services to veterans and transitioning service members that focus on managing family life while seeking work;
• Provide temporary child support for veterans re-entering the civilian workforce who are single parents; and
• Early outreach to women preparing to leave the service (12-24 months before leaving the service) and longer support after they return to civilian life (12-18 months).

“I’ve been encouraged by the recent progress made in Congress toward supporting our troops’ health and employment opportunities,” said Glassman. “But I hope we can cast a national spotlight on veteran employment discrimination as something we need to immediately address.”

The Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010 was recently signed into law and provides a wide range of programs that support veterans’ health, including programs specifically targeted toward women’s health and homeless veterans. A bipartisan Veterans Employment Act of 2010 is currently moving through the Senate and would provide funding for training and small business support for veterans. Neither of these pieces of legislation specifically address veteran employment discrimination.

Learn more at RodneyGlassman.com.

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“Another provision of health insurance reform to give greater health care security to American families is moving forward with guidance released yesterday on the benefit for young adults to stay covered under their parents’ insurance plans until age 26.

“The effective date of this new policy is September 23, 2010, but due to outreach by Democrats to encourage insurance companies to act early, every major insurer has said they will provide continuous coverage for young adults immediately. This means that many students graduating from college this spring will be able to retain coverage as they begin their adult lives and launch their careers.

“So instead of going through their early 20’s crossing their fingers and hoping they stay healthy, young adults will now have an option for affordable health care, and families will have the peace of mind that all their loved ones will be covered.

“This benefit is one of the many that have taken affect in the seven weeks since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law – and one that Republicans would take away if they ever succeeded in repealing reform. Rather than deny Americans benefits that give them more control over their health care, Democrats will continue working to make health care work better for families and small businesses.”

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Arizona Iced Tea is not based in Arizona, and now they sure as hell want you to know that. The passage of SB1070 and the resulting backlash in the form of boycotts and outrage have made it a liability to be a business based in the state of Arizona. While most of the calls for boycotts focus on travel, conventions, and businesses currently based in the state, the real long-term economic damage will be from businesses that choose to avoid locating or expanding to Arizona.

Cities and states are constantly trying to provide economic incentives for businesses to set up shop in their communities because of the long-term economic benefits that these businesses will yield through new jobs and tax revenue. However, Arizona’s brand has suffered a critical blow. Association with the state has negative economic consequences that will cause most businesses to go elsewhere with their economic expansion. The economic consequences will not be solely the short-term revenue losses from relocated conventions, but the accumulated losses of the economic development that could have been.

Governor Jan Brewer and her Republican colleagues in the state legislature have turned the state into economic poison. Even if SB1070 is overturned in the courts and calls for boycotts are withdrawn, the risk that they will do once again something similar remains.

Without a dramatic change in political leadership in the state of Arizona, businesses will be wary of potential fallout from political decisions and avoid development in the state. The Republican leadership has cost Arizona jobs and revenue that will be felt for years to come.

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Here is a set of 59 pictures from today’s rally.

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There have been some requests for the breakdown of the AZ State Senate vote on SB1070.

From ALIS:

YES (17):

Sylvia Allen (R-5)
David Braswell (R-6)
Chuck Gray (R-19)
Jack W. Harper (R-4)
Barbara Leff (R-11)
Al Melvin (R-26)
Russell Pearce (R-18)
Jay Tibshraeny (R-21)
Ed Bunch (R-7)
Linda Gray (R-10)
John Huppenthal (R-20)
Steve Pierce (R-1)
Thayer Verschoor (R-22)
Frank Antenori (R-30)
Ron Gould (R-3)
John Nelson (R-12)
Robert “Bob” Burns (R-9)

NO (11):

Paula Aboud (D-28)
Ken Cheuvront (D-15)
Manuel V. “Manny” Alvarez (D-25)
Jorge Luis Garcia (D-27)
Linda Lopez (D-29)
Richard Miranda (D-13)
Carolyn S. Allen (R-8)
Meg Burton Cahill (D-17)
Leah Landrum Taylor (D-16)
Debbie McCune Davis (D-14)
Rebecca Rios (D-23)

NV (2):

Amanda Aguirre (D-24)
Albert Hale (D-2)

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Yesterday I spent a couple of hours at the Arizona State Capitol for the SB1070 protests. You can see my photos from the event and a video I took embedded below.

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This infographic is from the Office of the House Majority Leader. Young Americans are on the bottom-left.

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The Environmental Defense Action Fund has launched a Campus Video Challenge for student environmental groups.

The student environmental group that adds the most unique videos telling Senators to support climate legislation to their personal Take a Stand YouTube playlist by May 30th can earn up to $3,000 in grants for future projects.

The university groups that upload the most videos will win grants to support future activism. We know there are lots of demands on student’s time, so this is our way of encouraging campus groups to get involved in this national movement. They may also have a chance to meet with their Senator’s office to state their appeal in person!

* The group with the most videos will receive $3,000
* The group with the 2nd most videos will receive $1,500
* The next five groups with the most videos will receive $500

You can use the money to continue your activism however your group sees fit after the challenge is over. Your group could use the grant to:

* Organize an event to raise awareness of environmental issues
* Invite a guest speaker to give a talk at your campus
* Plan a field trip to visit a local NGO working on environmental issues
* Have a t-shirt design contest and print the winning design

You must upload a minimum of 100 videos to be eligible for a grant. This is just a minimum – we expect the top winning groups to upload many more.

You can learn more about the challenge at edf.org/takeastand and become a fan of the challenge on Facebook.

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The Economic Policy Institute has released a new briefing paper entitled “The Kids Aren’t Alright: A Labor Market Analysis of Young Workers.” (Seriously though, that Kids Aren’t Alright line is getting way overused). Despite the uninspired title, there is a lot of interesting information in this analysis.

Young adults have faced the highest unemployment rate on record (since 1948) with workers 16 to 24 peaking at 19.2% last September. Especially interesting is the sub-demographic breakdown:

The difference between male and female unemployment rates for 16-24 year olds started 2010 at 7.5 percentage points; young men have a rate for 22.5% and young women 15.0%. This is the largest gap between men and women in any age group—the difference for 25-54 year olds is 1.7 points, and for workers 55 and older it is 1.4 points. The disparities between the unemployment rates of white, black, and Hispanic young workers are also stark. Black 16-24 year-old workers had the highest rate, starting 2010 at 32.5%, followed by Hispanics (24.2%), and then whites (15.2%). However, it is 16-24 year-old Hispanics workers who saw the largest increase in unemployment (13.2 percentage points), compared to their black (10.7 percentage points) or white (8.2 percentage points) counterparts.

I would like to see further study at some point as to why the sub-demographic differences are so dramatically starker with young workers than other age groups. This has serious consequences:

Because rates of unemployment for minorities have risen faster than for whites, the recession has exacerbated existing racial disparities among young adult workers.

The report reveals other significant statistics:

• One in every four unemployed persons in America is under
  the age of 25.
• Half of unemployed young workers have been unemployed for more than 15 weeks.
• If all those young workers who left the labor market (and have stopped looking for work) were counted as unemployed, the unemployment rate for 16-24-year-old workers would be 23.9%.

The analysis portrays a dark image of the youth employment environment, with young workers left behind as older Americans come out of retirement to rejoin the workforce. The 10 page report is worth a read and should cause us to seriously look at unemployment from a youth lens.

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