Today, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Doc Hastings (WA-04) released the following statement regarding the Department of Labor’s November unemployment report:

“Yesterday, we witnessed the White House ‘jobs summit’- a high profile event that unfortunately looked more like a shiny object meant to distract the American people from the Administration’s failed stimulus and unprecedented spending policies. But this morning we are faced with the stark reality that 10 percent of Americans still don’t have a job.

“And even though the President has promised to look at each and every opportunity to create new jobs, he continues to turn a blind eye to all-of-the-above energy development. It’s time for the Administration to replace the summits, endless rhetoric and fuzzy stimulus statistics with proven policies that will grow our economy and create ALL kinds of new jobs. Republicans have proposed the American Energy Act, a bill that will create new green jobs, oil and gas jobs, and nuclear jobs. If the Administration is really looking for positive ways to spur economic growth, they’ll consider this bill and support all-of-the-above energy development.”

Background

• The American Energy Act (H.R. 2846) is an all-of-the-above energy plan to responsibly use our natural resources to produce more American energy and create all types of new energy jobs:

• Green Jobs – The bill creates a Renewable and Alternative Energy Trust Fund to provide directed funding for new renewable energy projects. Tens of thousands of new, skilled high paying jobs would be created in the hydropower, solar, wind, clean coal, biomass and geothermal energy industries.

• Nuclear Jobs – The bill would bring 100 new nuclear reactors online over the next 20 years, creating tens of thousands of carbon free energy jobs.

• Oil and Natural Gas Jobs – The bill would immediately move forward with a leasing program on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf and codify the oil shale lease program – creating over a million offshore and onshore drilling jobs.

• This week, Natural Resource Committee Republicans also proposed a dozen bright ideas that the Administration could implement to create all-of-the-above energy jobs throughout the country.

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