This time, it seems, the boulder has moved. We have made a difference that could be worth at least 1000 jobs, created by the companies under fire for potentially sending thousands of jobs to china using US stimulus dollars.

Two companies that encountered political backlash for their plans to use Chinese-made wind turbines to build a giant wind farm in west Texas have announced plans to build a new turbine factory — in the United States. The U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a private-equity firm, and A-Power Energy Generation Systems, a Chinese turbine maker, said in a statement on Tuesday that they had signed an agreement to build "a new production and assemby plant in the United States that will supply highly advanced wind energy turbines to renewable energy projects throughout North and South America." -- Article

You may recall news that a 600 megawatt wind farm is going to be built in Texas. BUT the 2000 manufacturing jobs to build the turbines are likely to go to China while the US gets but 30 permanent jobs and 300 temporary ones.

That news in itself was a little irritating, but the insufferable part was that the companies responsible for the wind farms were also likely to receive $450 million in Federal stimulus money...money set aside to create US jobs. Money that was instead likely to go toward creating jobs outside the US.

This isn't an isolated case. Thisis all too common.

Many people in the blogosphere joined to express outrage.

Soon, Senator Chuck Schumer picked up the story and got into the fray sending a letter to Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu , demanding that Federal stimulus dollars be withheld from contracts that do not create jobs here in the United States.

Mr. Schumer said he had sent a letter on Thursday to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, urging him to "reject any request for stimulus money unless the high-value components, including the wind turbines, are manufactured in the United States." -- Article

Two weeks later the US and Chinese companies involved in the Texas wind farm, who were looking down the barrel of losing half a billion dollars in subsidies signed an agreement to build a US assembly plant that could employ 1000 people.

The companies say that the plant would would employ about 1,000 American workers in addition to creating construction jobs.

Is there a direct correlation?

Did the blogosphere move Schumer to demand that companies getting federal stimulus create US jobs?

Did Schumer's demand prompt these companies to sign an agreement to create a manufacturing facility in the US?

I don't know.

I do know that I felt the boulder move, however. Our demands and our voices matter. And they are heard. And they make a difference.

We're not doormats. We're not here to support business interests at any cost and hope and pray the businesses some day return the favor and our money. We're not helpless players in the Economy waiting for the benefit of our investment to trickle down to us. We ARE in a position to make demands, and as long as we do, maybe we at the bottom won't forever be the last in line.

And by the way, if anybody's looking for a place to put a 1000 person factory. Check out Muskegon.

I'm feeling pretty darn good.

Update [2009-11-17 16:58:17 by Muskegon Critic]: