Driving Growth: How Clean Cars and Climate Policy Can Create Jobs

The American auto sector -- a longtime source of good-paying, high skills jobs -- is struggling under the weight of this recession. Making vehicles here in the United States that are cleaner and more fuel efficient and therefore more attractive amid rising oil prices represents an opportunity to restore Detroit to global leadership while simultaneously reducing imports of foreign oil and curbing global warming. Fuel efficiency is cleaner, cheaper, and faster than drilling to meet our nation's energy needs, and as this study demonstrates, it can also produce tens of thousands of high quality manufacturing jobs here at home. This report, released jointly with the Center for American Progress and the UAW, illustrates the value of adopting comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation to help retool factories to build the next generation of vehicles that will carry our nation toward a cleaner and more secure energy future.