Jennifer Granholm: A clean energy proposal -- race to the top!

62,349 views ・ 2013-02-28

TED


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Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Morton Bast
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Well, I was introduced as
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the former Governor of Michigan,
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but actually I'm a scientist.
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All right, a political scientist, it doesn't really count,
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but my laboratory was the laboratory of democracy
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that is Michigan, and, like any good scientist,
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I was experimenting with policy
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about what would achieve the greatest good
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for the greatest number.
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But there were three problems, three enigmas
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that I could not solve,
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and I want to share with you those problems,
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but most importantly,
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I think I figured out a proposal for a solution.
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The first problem
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that not just Michigan, but every state, faces is,
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how do you create good jobs in America
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in a global economy?
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So let me share with you some empirical data from my lab.
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I was elected in 2002 and, at the end of my first year in office in 2003,
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I got a call from one of my staff members, who said,
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"Gov, we have a big problem.
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We have a little tiny community called Greenville, Michigan,
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population 8,000,
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and they are about to lose their major employer,
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which is a refrigerator factory that's operated by Electrolux."
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And I said, "Well, how many people work at Electrolux?"
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And he said, "3,000 of the 8,000 people in Greenville."
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So it is a one-company town.
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And Electrolux was going to go to Mexico.
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So I said, "Forget that. I'm the new Governor.
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We can fix this. We're going to go to Greenville
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with my whole cabinet and we will just
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make Electrolux an offer they can't refuse."
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So I brought my whole cabinet,
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and we met with all of the pooh-bahs of little Greenville --
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the mayor, the city manager, the head of the community college --
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and we basically emptied our pockets
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and put all of our chips on the table,
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incentives, you name it, to convince Electrolux to stay,
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and as we made our pile of chips,
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we slid them across the table to the management of Electrolux.
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And in the pile were things like zero taxes for 20 years,
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or that we'd help to build a new factory for the company,
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we'd help to finance it. The UAW, who represented the workers,
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said they would offer unprecedented concessions,
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sacrifices to just keep those jobs in Greenville.
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So the management of Electrolux took our pile,
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our list of incentives, and they went outside the room
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for 17 minutes,
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and they came back in and they said,
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"Wow, this is the most generous
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any community has ever been to try to keep jobs here.
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But there's nothing you can do
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to compensate for the fact that we can pay $1.57 an hour
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in Juarez, Mexico. So we're leaving."
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And they did. And when they did, it was like
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a nuclear bomb went off in little Greenville.
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In fact, they did implode the factory.
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That's a guy that is walking on his last day of work.
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And on the month that the last refrigerator rolled off the assembly line,
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the employees of Electrolux in Greenville, Michigan,
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had a gathering for themselves that they called the last supper.
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It was in a big pavilion in Greenville, an indoor pavilion,
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and I went to it because I was so frustrated as Governor
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that I couldn't stop the outflow of these jobs,
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and I wanted to grieve with them,
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and as I went into the room-- there's thousands of people there.
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It was a just big thing. People were eating boxed lunches
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on roundtop tables, and there was a sad band playing music,
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or a band playing sad music, probably both. (Laughter)
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And this guy comes up to me,
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and he's got tattoos and his ponytail and his baseball cap on,
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and he had his two daughters with him,
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and he said, "Gov, these are my two daughters."
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He said, "I'm 48 years old,
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and I have worked at this factory for 30 years.
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I went from high school to factory.
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My father worked at this factory," he said.
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"My grandfather worked at this factory.
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All I know is how to make refrigerators."
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And he looked at his daughters,
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and he puts his hand on his chest,
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and he says, "So, Gov, tell me,
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who is ever going to hire me?
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Who is ever going to hire me?"
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And that was asked not just by that guy
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but by everyone in the pavilion,
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and frankly, by every worker at one of the 50,000 factories
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that closed in the first decade of this century.
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Enigma number one: How do you create jobs
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in America in a global economy?
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Number two, very quickly:
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How do you solve global climate change
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when we don't even have a national energy policy in this country
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and when gridlock in Congress seems to be the norm?
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In fact, there was a poll that was done recently
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and the pollster compared Congress's approval ratings
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to a number of other unpleasant things,
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and it was found, in fact, that Congress's approval rating
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is worse than cockroaches,
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lice, Nickelback the band, root canals and Donald Trump. (Laughter)
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But wait, the good news is it's at least better
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than meth labs and gonorrhea. (Laughter)
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We got a problem, folks.
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So it got me thinking, what is it?
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What in the laboratory that I see out there,
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the laboratories of democracy, what has happened?
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What policy prescriptions have happened
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that actually cause changes to occur
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and that have been accepted in a bipartisan way?
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So if I asked you, for example,
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what was the Obama Administration policy
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that caused massive changes across the country,
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what would you say?
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You might say Obamacare, except for those were not voluntary changes.
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As we know, only half the states have opted in.
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We might say the Recovery Act, but those didn't require policy changes.
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The thing that caused massive policy changes to occur
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was Race to the Top for education.
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Why? The government put a $4.5 billion pot
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and said to the governors across the country, compete for it.
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Forty-eight governors competed,
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convincing 48 state legislatures to essentially
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raise standards for high schoolers
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so that they all take a college prep curriculum.
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Forty-eight states opted in, creating a national [education] policy from the bottom up.
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So I thought, well, why can't we do something like that
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and create a clean energy jobs race to the top?
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Because after all, if you look at the context,
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1.6 trillion dollars has been invested in the past eight years
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from the private sector globally,
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and every dollar represents a job,
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and where are those jobs going?
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Well, they're going to places that have policy, like China.
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In fact, I was in China to see what they were doing,
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and they were putting on a dog-and-pony show for the group that I was with,
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and I was standing in the back of the room during one of the demonstrations
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and standing next to one of the Chinese officials,
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and we were watching, and he says,
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"So, Gov, when do you think the U.S. is going to get national energy policy?"
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And I said, "Oh my God -- Congress, gridlock, who knows?"
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And this is what he did, he goes, he says,
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"Take your time."
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Because they see our passivity as their opportunity.
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So what if we decided to create
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a challenge to the governors of the country,
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and the price to entry into this competition
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used the same amount that the bipartisan group approved in Congress
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for the Race to the Top for education, 4.5 billion,
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which sounds like a lot, but actually it's less than
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one tenth of one percent of federal spending.
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It's a rounding error on the federal side.
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But price to entry into that competition would be,
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you could just, say, use the President's goal.
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He wants Congress to adopt a clean energy standard
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of 80 percent by 2030,
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in other words, that you'd have to get 80 percent
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of your energy from clean sources by the year 2030.
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Why not ask all of the states to do that instead?
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And imagine what might happen,
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because every region has something to offer.
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You might take states like Iowa and Ohio --
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two very important political states, by the way --
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those two governors, and they would say,
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we're going to lead the nation in producing
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the wind turbines and the wind energy.
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You might say the solar states, the sun belt,
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we're going to be the states that produce solar energy for the country,
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and maybe Jerry Brown says, "Well, I'm going to create
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an industry cluster in California
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to be able to produce the solar panels
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so that we're not buying them from China
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but we're buying them from the U.S."
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In fact, every region of the country could do this.
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You see, you've got solar and wind opportunity all across the nation.
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In fact, if you look just at the upper and northern states
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in the West, they could do geothermal,
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or you could look at Texas and say,
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we could lead the nation in the solutions to smart grid.
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In the middle eastern states which have access to forests
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and to agricultural waste, they might say,
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we're going to lead the nation in biofuels.
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In the upper northeast, we're going to lead the nation
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in energy efficiency solutions.
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Along the eastern seaboard, we're going to lead the nation
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in offshore wind.
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You might look at Michigan and say, we're going to lead the nation
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in producing the guts for the electric vehicle, like the lithium ion battery.
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Every region has something to offer,
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and if you created a competition,
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it respects the states and it respects federalism.
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It's opt-in. You might even get Texas and South Carolina,
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who didn't opt into the education Race to the Top,
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you might even get them to opt in. Why?
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Because Republican and Democratic governors
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love to cut ribbons.
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We want to bring jobs. I'm just saying.
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And it fosters innovation at the state level
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in these laboratories of democracy.
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Now, any of you who are watching anything about politics lately
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might say, "Okay, great idea, but really?
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Congress putting four and a half billion dollars on the table?
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They can't agree to anything."
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So you could wait and go through Congress,
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although you should be very impatient.
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Or, you renegades, we could go around Congress.
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Go around Congress.
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What if we created a private sector challenge to the governors?
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What if several of the high-net worth companies
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and individuals who are here at TED decided
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that they would create, band together, just a couple of them,
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and create a national competition to the governors
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to have a race to the top
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and see how the governors respond?
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What if it all started here at TED?
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What if you were here
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when we figured out how to crack the code
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to create good paying jobs in America -- (Applause) --
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and get national energy policy
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and we created a national energy strategy from the bottom up?
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Because, dear TEDsters,
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if you are impatient like I am,
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you know that our economic competitors,
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our other nations, are in the game
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and are eating us for lunch.
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And we can get in the game or not.
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We can be at the table or we can be on the table.
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And I don't know about you,
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but I prefer to dine.
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Thank you all so much. (Applause)
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