Georgia — and the Clean Economy — On My Mind
When it comes to the nation’s transition to a clean economy, there’s one state leading all the rest: Georgia.
You read that right.
Since the passage of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), at least 26 major clean energy and clean vehicle projects — including factories building electric vehicles, solar panels, batteries — have been announced in Georgia, according to E2’s research. Companies are investing more than $15 billion into these projects and expect to hire more than 14,000 workers.
But that’s just the start.
According to an in-depth analysis of these projects by E2 and our partner BW Research, the economic impacts are huge. When we examined the projects announced in just the first year since the IRA was announced, we found they’re likely to create or support 39,000 jobs and pump $14 billion into the state’s economy each and every year just while they’re under construction. Read more about our analysis here.
It’s no surprise, then, that there’s a lot of interest in Georgia’s clean economy transition.
We saw this first-hand at E2’s Georgia Clean Economy Summit on Feb. 15, where nearly 150 business leaders, policy experts and others joined us for a half-day summit to discuss the opportunities — and the hurdles — of the state’s clean economy revolution and the impacts of the IRA and other policies E2 helped pass in Washington.
Keynoting the event was the Georgia president of carmaker Kia, which just one day earlier revealed the first-ever electric vehicle made in Georgia. Other speakers included the president of the Georgia Association of Manufacturers, state economic development officials and numerous CEOs of clean energy companies working in the state.
All the jobs, investments and opportunities flowing into Georgia are amazing.
But as I told attendees at our Summit, it’s also all at risk.
Some members of Congress — including many Georgia’s representatives in the House — continue to try to repeal or roll back the very policies that are spurring this growth, including the IRA.
We have one presidential candidate who has pledged to kill these policies and instead tighten the nation’s shackles to fossil fuels.
And even though this clean economy revolution is happening now, we must address issues like workforce availability, equity and environmental justice.
As we see in Georgia, now’s not the time to go backward on policies driving the clean economy revolution.
Let’s keep moving forward.
Georgia — and the Clean Economy — On My Mind was originally published in e2org on Medium.