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Auto parts suppliers may get loans to make turbines, solar panels

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By Jessica Wehrman, Staff Writer 1:29 AM Thursday, June 18, 2009

WASHINGTON — If U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown has his way, some of the auto parts suppliers now struggling will soon be making wind turbines and solar panels.

Brown, D-Ohio, introduced a bill on Wednesday, June 17, to create a two-year $30 billion revolving loan fund to help encourage small and medium-size manufacturers retool and produce clean energy products.

The bill would also extend the federal Manufacturing Extension Partnership and expand it to $300 million a year for five years, compared to the $100 million a year that it is currently funded. That partnership helps manufacturers access clean energy and adopt energy-efficient manufacturing technologies.

The revolving loan portion of the bill — which Brown predicts will create 180,000 direct manufacturing jobs — is designed to benefit companies with 500 or fewer workers.

Brown said his measure could be attached to climate change legislation and could help offset any potential job losses created by a climate change bill.

Brown and other Midwestern, industrial-state Democrats have expressed concern that a climate change bill needs to take into account the fact that manufacturing would incur higher energy costs and could suffer as a result.

He said he views climate change as having the potential to create manufacturing jobs as the domestic energy industry scrambles to find cleaner fuel.

“We have such an opportunity here,” he said.

Currently, some 70 percent of America’s clean energy systems are produced abroad, including half of the country’s wind turbines and all transformers for the electrical grid, according to the Apollo Alliance, a coalition of labor, business and environmental leaders interested in clean energy.

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