The BlueGreen Alliance and Apollo Alliance today announced a merger to strengthen and unify the movement to build a clean energy, good jobs economy to fuel U.S. job creation. The newly unified organization will call on Washington to focus anew on creating good jobs, securing America’s energy future and preserving the environment for future generations.

Beginning July 1, the two organizations will combine to become the BlueGreen Alliance, which will be home to the Apollo Alliance project. United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard and Sierra Club Chair Carl Pope will continue as co-chairs, and David Foster will continue as executive director. 

Earlier this year, the BlueGreen Alliance launched Jobs21!, a nine-state grassroots campaign calling for a national jobs plan to put America back to work building the industries of the 21^st century here in the United States. This initiative will be strengthened through coordination with the Apollo Alliance’s strong network of state and local affiliates–now dubbed BlueGreen Apollo Alliances. It will also be enhanced by Apollo’s recently-launched Clean Transportation Manufacturing Action Plan (TMAP) project that calls for federal investment in clean transportation that will create 3.7 million direct and indirect jobs over six years and will save Americans up to $5,000 per family each year in commuting costs. 

In their first official act together, the new BlueGreen Alliance and the Apollo Alliance joined U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)  today for a telephone press conference to announce their support for his new legislation — the Strengthening Manufacturing and Rebuilding Transit (SMART) Act — that would invest in American-made transportation infrastructure.  Brown’s legislation is aimed at enhancing domestic transportation supply chains while maximizing job creation in manufacturing.

Brown told reporters:

The buses, trolleys and trains that take Americans to every corner of our country should be ‘Made in America.’  By strengthening the domestic supply chain for public transit, the SMART Act will strengthen our public transit options and revitalize our manufacturing heritage.”

 “Nearly three years after the bottom fell out of our economy, we are still facing a jobs crisis of historic proportions,” Gerard told reporters.

We can’t afford to sit on the sidelines while the U.S. misses the boat on the industries of the 21st century — the biggest job-creating opportunity in a generation.