These jobs will bring immediate relief to American families. But they will help also revive our ailing manufacturing base and establish our nation’s leadership in the fastest growing global economy of the 21st century. In the process, all Americans will feel the benefits of a stronger economy and a cleaner, safer energy future.

But this new program does something even more critical. It makes jobs available now when American workers need them most. The projects included in the Recovery Act Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit program must get up and running by 2014, but about 30 percent have to be completed by the end of this year.

This means new jobs for workers in Louisiana who will produce special tire treads that makes cars get more miles per gallon. It means new jobs for workers in South Carolina who will manufacture the smart meters that help homeowners reduce their electricity use. And it means new jobs for workers in Nebraska who will build the next generation of wind turbine blades.

These kinds of fast-moving, on-the-ground opportunities offer good news on a day when we also learned that December’s unemployment rates remained struck around 10 percent. Obama’s program offers a powerful antidote and shows that investing in clean energy generates jobs.

I welcome this new program with open arms, but I know we can do more. Much more.

And we do it by passing a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill. The House of Representatives passed a climate bill in June that could generate nearly 2 million new jobs, according to economists at the University of California.

Now our senators should seize this opportunity and pass their own version. Yes, the bill will help us confront global warming, but it will also put Americans back to work.

That’s why so many labor organizations support a clean energy and climate bill. A few months ago, I traveled to a union hall in the midst of Gary, Indiana’s ailing industrial parks to talk with steelworkers.

Tom Conway, the international vice president of the United Steelworkers, told the crowd that it takes more than 250,000 tons of steel to make just 1 single wind turbine. Gary is a steel town, and a shift to renewable energy means jobs security for local workers.

“This is about jobs, jobs, jobs,” he said. “And this is about leaving a clean environment for our kids.”

President Obama’s new program will help bring those jobs--and that brighter future--to thousands of American families. But we shouldn’t stop here. A national clean energy and climate law will do much more.

Beck may be crowing about this so-called victory, but his stance on Van--and his resistance to the change he represents--puts Beck squarely on the wrong side of American progress.

You see Beck and his friends at Fox News are cheerleaders for 19th century energy sources--dirty coal and oil--that have run their course. Van represents a path that will turn America into the leader of the 21st century clean energy global marketplace.

Which one sounds like a communist to you? The dirty, polluting relic of the past or the beacon of future prosperity and growth?

Two years ago Van Jones came and spoke to NRDC, and every person in the room was moved by his green jobs vision. This was before Obama was president, before the stimulus package, and before the economy faltered. Back then, Jones was just a man from Oakland with a powerful plan for how America could become a leader in establishing a clean energy economy and, in the process, lift untold Americans out of poverty.

Since that first time I heard Van speak, his vision has taken hold. In the face of the financial crisis and the threat of global warming, Americans across a broad spectrum of backgrounds have embraced it. From Ivory Tower economists to Fortune 500 executives, from workers in struggling manufacturing cities like Cleveland and Gary to venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, people realize that investing in clean energy will jumpstart our shaky economy and generate jobs for struggling Americans.

The ideas Van so eloquently communicates have become mainstream today, and that is threatening to the far right and their friends at Fox News. They chose to tear down Van by piecing together random snippets and a few ill-advised statements.

But what I find ironic is that so much of what Van says embodies not radical talk but traditional American values.

He advocates for jobs that give people a path out of poverty--what some people call pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. He wants Americans of all colors and backgrounds to have equal access to good paying jobs--what some might say is giving people a fair shake. He wants to keep jobs in America, train Americans in the skills they need in the 21st century, and put America at the forefront of a global market.

To me that sounds like the American principles of hard work, innovation, self-reliance, and justice for all. Remarkably it sounds to Glenn Beck like the ideas of a "communist-anarchist radical."

Van may have left the White House, but I know his voice and his vision will continue to be a force in America. Indeed, he may become an even more potent advocate, reminding us what a green economic future can and should look like.  

In the spring, he inspired thousands of young people at the PowerShift 09 conference in Washington by laying out the challenge before us:

Greening this economy is not just a technological challenge or a political challenge or a legislative challenge or a business challenge. It is a moral challenge. And only your generation is diverse enough, loving enough, connected enough, determined enough to meet the true moral challenge that we face, which is this:

We have to create a green economy, that is true, but we have to create a green economy that Dr. King would be proud of. We have to create a green economy that includes everybody, that has a place for everyone. That is why we say Green for All.

That is the path to a better future for America. And while plenty of people like Glenn Beck will try to step in the way, I believe we can still get there.

But I also went to listen to workers themselves. The men and women I spoke to made two things clear to me.

First, they know their jobs are vulnerable. Some are lucky enough to still work at one of the few operating mills, but lay offs loom just around the corner in these tough economic times.

And second, they see a clear path out of this grim picture: legislation that will expand the market for clean energy and generate jobs.

Tom Conway, the international vice president of the United Steelworkers, told the crowd that it takes more than 250 tons of steel to make just 1 single wind turbine. Gary is a steel town, and a shift to renewable energy means jobs security for local workers.

"This is about jobs, jobs, jobs," he said. "And this is about leaving a clean environment for our kids."

The 150 people who came to the rally heartily agreed with Conway. They cheered Conway and all the other speakers on, and they really erupted when Jackson said:

I've seen so many situations where those who oppose change put in terms of making a choice: green in our pocketbook or green in our environment. We know we don't have to choose. It's been offered before. Don't take it this time.

I am no firebrand, but after I spoke, people said they appreciated seeing environmental leaders coming out to where the jobs are at stake, where D.C. policy decisions will make the difference between a pay check and a pink slip.

I am proud to say NRDC has a history of making those connections. The Made in America rally was organized by the Alliance for Climate Protection and the Blue Green Alliance, which brings together unions and environmental organizations. 

But that is just the most recent outgrowth of NRDC's partnership with unions. We have been working with labor leaders for decades.

Stretching back to the 1970s, NRDC was honored to have Tony Mazzocchi join our board of trustees. Mazzocchi was the famous head of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers who brought national attention to workers' "right to know" what dangerous chemicals they were handling on the job, His work led to the passing of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, and inspired people to call him the Rachel Carson of the American workplace. Mazzocchi helped NRDC build strong ties to the labor movement, and his efforts were continued by Jack Sheehan, the legislative director of the United Steelworkers who is still an NRDC honorary trustee.

Mazzocchi once said, "When you build a big movement from down below, regardless of who's in the White House, you can bring about change."

Union members and environmentalists--together with youth groups, business leaders, veterans and others--are building that movement. But right now, their focus is on Congress, not the White House.

The workers I spoke to in Gary expressed frustration with their representatives. Even before the economic crisis erupted last year, they watched one mill after another get shuttered. Now the workers who still have jobs feel even more vulnerable.

But they are also bothered by another challenge: they feel like there is a clear solution to their problem--the clean energy and climate bill that will generate jobs in America--but they aren't sure there senators are listening.

Indiana is home to two critical swing voters: Senators Evan Bayh and Dick Lugar. The workers I spoke in Gary clearly want their senators to move ahead with a comprehensive clean energy bill and to make sure their concerns were addressed in it.

And standing in that union hall, in the shadow of Gary's many silent steel mills, I couldn't imagine why Indiana's senators would pass up the biggest jobs opportunity their state has seen in decades.

This is why they are coming together to support the clean energy bill. And this is what real grassroots look like.

A new Washington Post poll shows that most Americans approve of the Obama administration's efforts to shift to clean energy. Likewise, August polling by Zogby International showed that seven in ten Americans support clean energy legislation and want to see it passed in the Senate.

We think those voices deserve to be heard. And we're proud to have the chance to stand shoulder to shoulder with American workers who want to invest their labors in building the next generation of energy efficient homes, workplaces and cars.

There's a difference between lending voice and twisting arms.

From the New York Times to Grist, journalists have reported that the dirty energy lobby is pressuring employees to show up at demonstrations against green jobs. They've named corporate coordinators to count noses and take names. They've hired a national events coordinator to choreograph these gatherings, trying to make them appear to be spontaneous expressions of grassroots sentiment.

We're not dressing ourselves up as something we're not. We haven't gone out and hired consultants to tell folks how to think. We aren't intimidating families in tough economic times.

What we've done instead is lay out a simple message of hope. We've said: if you believe in generating new jobs, reducing our reliance on foreign oil and creating a healthier planet for our children, join with us in calling for change. The response has been spontaneous and it has been overwhelming.

And it is based on real opportunities--opportunities that are beginning to make a concrete difference in the lives of Hoosiers.

You can see it in the numbers. While Indiana saw overall jobs decline between 1998 and 2007, jobs in clean energy grew nearly 18 percent, according to a Pew Charitable Trust study.

But you can also see it in people's stories. People like the 220 Gary steelworkers who are keeping up with demand for wind turbine parts at the ArcelorMittal steel plant.

And people like small business owners Dave and Glen Smith. When Glen got laid off from his job servicing cell phone towers a few years ago, he and his brother Dave launched Wind-Wire, a company that sells and installs wind turbines throughout Indiana. Business has been so good that they have now expanded into Michigan and Illinois.

Clean energy has given these workers a lifeline in a tough economy. But Indiana has only just begun to tap its potential.

According to a recent report by the Political Economy Research Institute, investment in the clean energy economy could generate 38,013 green jobs in Indiana. More than 20,000 of those jobs could go to workers with a high school diploma or less, offering families a path out of poverty.

Indiana can't realize this promise on its own. It needs a national commitment to clean energy investment to take it to the next level.

The climate bill that passed the House in June and is headed to the Senate this fall can achieve that. It will dramatically expand the market for the green energy solutions that can be made in Indiana's existing factories.

It is also designed to keep electric bills affordable. The wild exaggerations of Governor Daniels just aren't supported by the numbers.

You can click here for my post about electricity bills, but here is a quick look at the data. Using numbers from the EPA and the Energy Information Agency, analysts found that Hoosiers' bills will be an average $6 higher if a climate bill passes. But this data is missing something important: it does not factor in the numerous energy efficiency measures included in the ACES bill that will save Americans money.

Indeed, lots of money--approximately $750 per household by 2020. NRDC calculated that when these efficiency measures are factored in, Americans in nearly every state will SAVE an average of $5.99 a month--the same as the average increase in Hoosier bills.

It is because of opportunities for jobs and savings that workers in Gary will be gathering Thursday. These people don't support climate legislation because environmental groups or labor unions told them to. They support it because they believe in it.

They understand this is about our values and our future. It's about getting our country back on its feet. It's about putting Americans back to work.

Now that is something to rally for.