President Joe Biden is set to tout his administration’s efforts to boost clean energy manufacturing and create union jobs in a speech Thursday in Philadelphia.
Earlier in the day, the White House Announced the first lease sale of offshore wind in the Gulf of Mexico, which it says will have enough clean energy potential to power nearly 1.3 million homes.
Biden will visit the Philadelphia Shipyard for a steel-cutting ceremony to mark the construction of a new offshore wind vessel, the White House said.
The power generators will generate an estimated $125 million in economic activity each year, and 1,000 workers across nine unions were employed to build them, using steel plates made by the United Steelworkers in Indiana, it added.
The president’s focus on unions comes as the potential for additional strikes looms over his 2024 re-election campaign.
On Wednesday, Biden held a brief meeting with Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union, a White House official said. The UAW leadership had asked to brief senior White House staff on its analysis and positions regarding negotiations with the Big Three automakers: General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis. Fain has saying that the UAW is willing to attack those companies.
UPS workers have also threatened to strike as Teamsters leaders, who represent UPS workers, negotiate a new labor contract. Meanwhile, the national board of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, also known as SAG-AFTRA, voted unanimously to go on strike this month, after the Writers Guild of America had already filed for strike.
Biden has frequently referred to himself as the most pro-union president in history.
Despite his administration’s efforts to advance the president’s “Bidenomics” agenda, his economic approval rating has risen only slightly, from 3% in April to 37%, according to the new CNBC report. All America Economic Survey.
This summer, top administration officials toured the country to promote Biden’s economic agenda as part of the Investing in America tour. The president delivered a speech on Bidenomics on July 6 in South Carolina highlighting the importance of infrastructure.
Bidenomics focuses on three points: making public investments, educating workers to grow the middle class and promoting competition, according to the White House.
Across the aisle, the GOP has seized on voter concerns about the economy to attack Bidenomics. The White House criticized Republicans in Congress in its fact sheet announcing the president’s visit to Philadelphia, saying that if the Republicans “had had their way, their states would have lost billions of dollars in investment, jobs and opportunity.” “.
“Yet nearly all House Republican members voted again to repeal the Clean Energy Tax Credits from the Inflation Reduction Act in April 2023, doubling down on their opposition at a time when manufacturers were investing in their state. ”, the White House wrote.
carolina kenny and Peter Alexander contributed.
