The White House isn’t saying how many green jobs President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan will create.
In a video shared on Friday, press secretary Jen Psaki answered questions from the public about Biden’s $2.25 trillion infrastructure plan, a sweeping bill that has faced pushback from business groups and from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.
“First of all, it will create millions of jobs, put people back to work, and invest in industries of the future,” Psaki said, before reading aloud several questions.
Asked how many of these would be green jobs, Psaki did not give a number but said that plans to modernize infrastructure would help create climate-friendly jobs.
“The way the president sees green jobs and job creation is that it’s all intertwined,” Psaki said. “Addressing our climate crisis and making sure we’re putting people back to work is something we can do together.”
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Earlier this month, the White House gave conflicting answers on the number of jobs Biden’s “American Jobs Plan” would create. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and National Economic Council Director Brian Deese initially said it would create 19 million jobs.
Biden, too, made a similar claim while announcing the initiative. Citing “Wall Street outfits,” Biden said predictions put the number at 18 million jobs over four years before revising the number in later statements.
In remarks on Friday, Biden said new jobs would be created from the effort to tackle climate change, including in “fields we haven’t even conceived of yet,” billing the endeavor as a “sort of fourth industrial revolution.”
Speaking from the White House East Room, Biden stressed that workers who “thrived in yesterday’s and today’s industries have as bright a tomorrow in the new industries.”
Biden ran through job opportunities that he envisaged growing, such as building electric cars, the charging infrastructure needed for them, building energy-efficient homes and wind turbines, installing solar panels, and refitting schools and commercial buildings. The president also said that he wants to try his hand driving an electric bus and that he had his license to do so.
“Today’s final session is not about the threat climate change poses,” Biden said. “It’s about the opportunity that addressing climate change provides, an opportunity to create millions of good-paying jobs around the world in innovative sectors.”
He continued: “When we invest in climate resilience and infrastructure, we create opportunities for everyone. That’s at the heart of our jobs plan that I proposed here in the United States. It’s how our nation intends to build an economy that gives everybody a fair shot.”
On Thursday, Biden pledged to slash U.S. emissions to half their 2005 levels by the end of 2030 and to position the country as a world leader on climate change issues during the first day of a virtual climate summit.
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Speaking to reporters at the White House, Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, pointed job prediction data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for blue-collar workers.
“The jobs are growing there,” Kerry said. “I’m not offering that job to somebody who may feel, ‘Oh my God. I have a better job. I don’t want to lose that job,’ etc. But the job market here is going to be gigantic for electricians, plumbers, pipe fitters, steelworkers, heavy equipment operators, all of these people, building out America’s grid and transitioning us to this new future.”
