“The next COVID-19 relief bill should include measures to stabilise investment and bring people in the clean energy and energy efficiency sector back to work” Ms Jacobson said. “Since the US escalation of the pandemic in early March, over 500,000 clean energy jobs have been lost and the clean energy project and investment pipeline has been significantly interrupted. Project construction and permitting has been delayed, financing has been slowed, and supply chains have been disrupted. The energy efficiency sector continues to suffer from 360,000 job losses impacting a full 15 percent of its work force, while a total of 82,400 renewable electric power generation workers (14 percent of the sector’s workforce) remain unemployed due to the pandemic. Given the diversity of products, services and business models in clean energy sectors, a range of policy solutions are needed to provide market stability, including support to states, localities, and tribes; adjustments to tax policy; regulatory changes; funding for research, development, and deployment (RD&D) initiatives, and workforce development among other proposals. The objectives are to provide market stability in this uncertain period and to spur investment and jobs for economic recovery when the time is right.”
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