Jones is the founder of Green for All and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. He will reportedly begin work next week as the Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, with a particular focus on “vulnerable communities.”

“Van Jones has been a strong voice for green jobs and we look forward to having him work with departments and agencies to advance the President’s agenda of creating 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and utilize renewable resources,” Sutley said in a statement.

When rumors began to swirl around the interwebs on Monday as news broke that Van Jones would likely be named as some sort of “Green Jobs Czar” in the Obama administration, many of us here at Green Options were reminded of David Anderson’s persuasive argument for Van Jones as the next “Secretary of Prosperity.”

I’ve argued before that Van Jones gets what green collar jobs are all about and understands what they mean for the environment and for the economy. Jones’ brand of environmentalism is not so much about the preservation of pristine wilderness areas (though I’m sure that’s part of it), as it is about creating jobs in urban communities in the construction, building efficiency, and renewable energy sectors.

Notwithstanding the fact that there is actually no such thing as a Secretary of Prosperity (yet), we’re pretty jazzed about the Van Jones appointment and look forward to seeing what he can accomplish working from inside government, because we’ve already seen what he can doing working outside it.

Image: Center for American Progress

Herger’s Voting Record

Wally Herger is one of the worst representatives in Congress evident by his voting record.  He is against women’s right to choose, the Endangered Species Amendment Act, alternative fuels and public transportation, alternative energy tax incentives, etc.  Herger is for the war, FISA, drug war funding in Mexico and Central America, etc. Now he wants to open up the forests to logging without following the full guidelines of NEPA, which requires “federal agencies to integrate environmental values into their decision making processes by considering the environmental impacts of their proposed actions and reasonable alternatives to those actions,” including an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

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