Durham Company is Stimulus Success Story

Cree praised as leader in green technology

Vice President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Steven Chu were in Durham this week to promote the stimulus bill's clean-energy tax credit and to tout the accomplishments of Cree, a manufacturer of LED lighting.

Because of a $39 million tax credit, Cree has been able to hire 375 workers in the state since 2009. Cree has also been awarded $1.8 million in stimulus funds to pay for research and development, according to a report in the Durham Herald-Sun:

Biden praised the 23-year-old company for innovating, creating domestic jobs and manufacturing capacity and exporting its products around the world. "A company like Cree is a model for what we're trying to do," he said.

The vice president said the company and others like it are helping green jobs bolster prospects for the middle class.

"We want to make sure that everyone who aspires to be in the middle class can get there, and that those that get there can stay there," Biden stated.

To Turn Around America, we have to become a country that leads the world in a new technological clean-energy revolution, one that will bring good-paying jobs like Cree is doing with help from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

At the event, Vice President Biden announced that even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has often been at odds with this administration, had just signed a letter asking Congress to expand the credit, and Biden defended the program against critics who would call it wasteful:

"We'll get our money back in spades. We'll get a return on this program that far exceeds any investment we make."