The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Chair Nancy Sutley announced yesterdaythat Van Jones – an early green jobs visionary — will start Monday as Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at CEQ:

 

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.  Jones will also help to shape and advance the Administration’s energy and climate initiatives with a specific interest in improvements and opportunities for vulnerable communities

 

Jones is the founder of Green For All, an organization focused on creating green jobs in impoverished areas. He is also the co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Color of Change, and was the author of the 2008 New York Times best-seller, The Green Collar Economy.  

 

Watch Jones’ panel at the first official meeting of the Middle Class Task Force in Philadephia:

 

Elizabeth Kolbert of the New Yorker profiled Jones in January:

 

“Your goal has to be to get the greenest solutions to the poorest people,” Jones told me. “That’s the only goal that’s morally compelling enough to generate enough energy to pull this transition off. The challenge is making this an everybody movement, so your main icons are Joe Six-Pack—Joe the Plumber—becoming Joe the Solar Guy, or that kid on the street corner putting down his handgun, picking up a caulk gun.”