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Posts Tagged ‘Green Jobs’
June 20th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
Federal Government Creating Green Jobs … at $12 Million a Pop
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Further evidence that the Obama Administration’s green jobs fetish defies all logic, economic or otherwise, comes from this report from CNS News:

An Obama administration green jobs grant program that spent $11 billion lacks a verifiable job-counting system and likely created only a fraction of the jobs it claims, according to a staff report by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

While Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the grants “created tens of thousands of jobs,” the government’s own National Renewal Energy Laboratory estimates it created 910 direct jobs.

The House report criticized even those numbers, saying: “The job creation numbers that exist for Section 1603 are based on models, not actual data from completed projects. Neither Treasury nor DOE have turned over actual jobs data on the Section 1603 grants program to the committee.”

In the spirit of generosity, let’s assume the 910 number is correct. At $11 billion, that comes out to well over $12 million per job. A ludicrous amount to be sure, but also one that comes with an enormous opportunity cost. Scroll down the page to Ashton’s post on the cost-effectiveness of Washington D.C.’s Opportunity Scholarship program and you’ll find that the whole thing (which the Obama Administration has consistently targeted for elimination) could be funded at the cost of less than two of those green jobs.

The character of this administration can be defined by its priorities. Does anything more need to be said than that they would rather slip millions of taxpayer dollars to tech firms who haven’t so much as worked up a business model than to poor children in the inner city? Hope indeed.

June 8th, 2012 at 2:44 pm
BLS: “Green Jobs” Include Oil Lobbyists, Bus Drivers

Thanks to The Daily Caller’s Nicholas Ballasy for posting an extended exchange between House oversight committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and two officials from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on what occupations count as “green jobs.”

REP. DARRELL ISSA: Well, let me — let me run you through some questions here because you’re here because we’re having a green jobs counting discussion.
Does someone who assembles turbines — is that a green job?

MS. JANE OATES: Wind turbines?

REP. ISSA: Yeah. Wind turbines.

MS. OATES: I think we would call any kind of sustainable manufacturing –

REP. ISSA: OK.

MS. OATES: — fitting the definition that was –

REP. ISSA: Does someone who sweeps — does someone who sweeps the floor in a facility that makes solar panels, is that a green job?

MS. OATES: Solar? I’ll give that to –

REP. ISSA: To Galvin?

MS. OATES: — if you don’t mind.

MR. JOHN GALVIN: We define — we have a two-part definition –

REP. ISSA: We already had the briefing on that. So just answer the question. If you’re sweeping the floor in a solar panel production facility, is that a green job?

MR. GALVIN: If you ask me for the number of health care jobs in the United States, I’ll give you the employment from the health care industry.

REP. ISSA: Look, Mr. Galvin –

MR. GALVIN: — nurses and doctors –

REP. ISSA: You did not want to come here as a witness. You are not a delighted witness. So let’s go through this. I asked you a question. You know the answer. Would you please answer it.
If you sweep the floor in a solar panel facility, is that a green job?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

REP. ISSA: Thank you. If you drive a hybrid bus — public transportation — is that a green job?

MR. GALVIN: According to our definition, yes.

REP. ISSA: Thank you. What if you’re a college professor teaching classes about environmental studies?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

REP. ISSA: What about just any school bus driver?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

REP. ISSA: What about the guy who puts gas in the school bus?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

REP. ISSA: How about employees at a bicycle shop?

MR. GALVIN: I guess I’m not sure about that.

REP. ISSA: The answer is yes, according to your definition. And you’ve got a lot of them.
What about a clerk at the bicycle repair shop?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

REP. ISSA: What about someone who works in an antique dealer?

MR. GALVIN: I’m not sure about that either.

REP. ISSA: The answer is yes. Those are — those are recycled goods. They’re antiques; they’re used.
What about someone who works at the Salvation Army in their clothing recycling and furniture?

MR. GALVIN: Right. Because they’re selling recycled goods.

REP. ISSA: OK. What about somebody who opened a store to sell rare manuscripts?

MR. GALVIN: What industry is that?

REP. ISSA: People sell rare books and manuscripts — but they’re rare because they’re old so they’re used.

MR. GALVIN: OK.

REP. ISSA: What about workers at a consignment shop?

MR. GALVIN: That’s a green job.

REP. ISSA: Does the teenage kid who works full time at a used record shop count?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

REP. ISSA: How about somebody who manufacturers railroads rolling stock — basically, train cars?

MR. GALVIN: I don’t think we classified the manufacture of rail cars as –

REP. ISSA: 48.8 percent of jobs in manufacturing, rail cars counted, according to your statistics. About half of the jobs that are being used to build trains.
OK. How about — just one more here. What about people who work in a trash disposal yard? Do garbage men have green jobs?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

REP. ISSA: OK. I apologize. The real last last is, how about an oil lobbyist? Wouldn’t an oil lobbyist count as having a green job if they are engaged in advocacy related to environmental issues?

MR. GALVIN: Yes.

May 17th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
The Case for Green Jobs: America Should be More Like Bankrupt Countries
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At a time when Spain is in the news because it lingers on the edge of a full-blown economic meltdown, it’s instructive to remember that this is the country that’s supposed to be the model for the green jobs revolution that President Obama continually claims will help revitalize the American economy. Over at The Blaze, the American Enterprise Institute’s Kenneth Green looks at the factual case and finds it far from compelling:

Now, to the empirical evidence. When talking about our bold green energy future, President Obama held up Spain as an example of what America should be doing. Spain invested heavily in wind power and other types of renewable energy. Alas, after studying the Spanish Experience, Professor Gabriel Calzada Álvarez and colleagues at Spain’s Universidad Rey Juan Carlos found if America followed Spain’s example, for every renewable energy job that the U.S. managed to create, the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 traditional jobs on average. And they found that green jobs are costly: each green job created in Spain’s effort cost about $750,000, and only one in 10 of the new green jobs were permanent. Doing the math on that, creating even 3 million new green jobs would cost $2.25 trillion. Even in a time where the trillion is the new billion, that’s a lot of money.

Indeed it is. But the money isn’t the real issue. Any “jobs plan” that entails a net loss in jobs shouldn’t be taken seriously by anybody, let alone the President of the United States. If green jobs really are the future of the economy, then sufficient market demand will arise to compel their creation. If, as is far more likely, they are simply a progressive fantasy financed at taxpayer expense, they deserve to have their grip on the public purse shaken as abruptly as possible.

September 8th, 2011 at 11:26 pm
FBI Raids Obama Green Jobs Company

There’s been quite a bit of media buzz surrounding the recently announced bankruptcy of Solyndra, the California solar panel company that couldn’t turn a profit even after a $535 million loan from the federal government.

But what started out as Exhibit A in the case against subsidizing green jobs into existence has morphed into the latest scandal engulfing the Obama Administration.  At issue is a suspicious connection between a Solyndra investor’s work as a bundler for the Obama campaign and the sweetheart loan given to the company.

On Wednesday, the FBI raided Solyndra’s Fremont, California headquarters, and Republicans are promising increased scrutiny.  It would be bad enough if there is a pay-to-play scandal, but it’s even worse financially since the failure of Solyndra is both corrupt and incompetent.

August 16th, 2011 at 9:40 pm
$20 Million Obama “Green Jobs” Program Creates Work for 14 in Seattle
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In the Obama era, the news on any given day seems seems like a real-time seminar on the disutility of Keynesian economics and “green energy” faddishness. The latest such entry comes from KOMO-TV news in Seattle, which reports the following:

Last year, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced the city had won a coveted $20 million federal grant to invest in weatherization. The unglamorous work of insulating crawl spaces and attics had emerged as a silver bullet in a bleak economy – able to create jobs and shrink carbon footprint – and the announcement came with great fanfare.

McGinn had joined Vice President Joe Biden in the White House to make it. It came on the eve of Earth Day. It had heady goals: creating 2,000 living-wage jobs in Seattle and retrofitting 2,000 homes in poorer neighborhoods.

But more than a year later, Seattle’s numbers are lackluster. As of last week, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program.

Fourteen jobs instead of 2,000. That means the Administration’s estimates were off by 99.3%. Since this president is so fond of telling us how much he respects the private sector, how about a few analogies from the real world?

— A baseball player with this level of accuracy would be hitting .007

— A financial adviser with this level of accuracy would have invested $250,000 and ended up with $1,750.

— A doctor with this level of accuracy who saw 850 patients a year would misdiagnose 844 of them.

If you had that baseball player, you’d cut him. If you had that financial adviser, you’d fire him. And if you had that doctor, you’d find a new physician and probably report the old one for malpractice. If you had this president …

March 14th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Unions, Environmentalists at War over EPA Regulations

Since at least the FDR era, the Democratic Party has served as an umbrella for a motley coalition of special interest groups that have only one thing in common: demanding action from government.  Most of the time, the competing priorities of the groups don’t come into direct conflict.  But when they do, it is a delight to sit back and watch each carve up the other.

Today’s example comes from the pages of the Wall Street Journal.  Apparently, businesses in the energy sector aren’t the only ones fighting the Obama Administration’s job-killing EPA regulations.  Labor unions like the Utility Workers Union of America and the United Mine Workers are demanding a ceasefire on cap-it-or-close-it regulations that could force companies to close 18% of the nation’s coal factories if they fail to comply with the EPA’s proposed climate change rules.

Unions recognize that without factories workers get fired.  Environmentalists don’t want to budge on what the Natural Resources Defense Council calls “the biggest public health achievement” of the Obama Administration.

Simple math is likely to break the stalemate.  Unions in coal states account for millions of campaign contributions and thousands of votes.  With Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin all flipping from Obama in 2008 to the Republicans in 2010, don’t count on the president to sacrifice his reelection chances on the altar of green jobs.

If he does, union voters – and their dollars – just might stay home in 2012.

February 2nd, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Ramirez Cartoon: Obama’s Green Economy
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Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

November 23rd, 2010 at 10:01 pm
The Only Problem with Green Jobs is that they Don’t Exist
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Senik’s Law of Subsidies: Subsidizing any industry into existence requires destroying its more efficient competitors. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of green jobs.

Luckily, the Obama Administration hasn’t been able to get its hands on the noose with which it intends to strangle the energy industry (I’m sorry … the industry that produces energy that actually works): that would be cap and trade. Thus, it’s had to settle for the silver medal of plowing money into “green jobs” that can’t balance the books without a chunk of your paycheck to stem the tide of red ink. The problem, of course, is that since conventional fuel sources like coal and petroleum are still the most feasible energy sources, the government is underwriting jobs that serve no discernible demand in the consumer market. Consider this passage from a story in today’s Washington Post:

With nearly 15 million Americans out of work and the unemployment rate hovering above 9 percent for 18 consecutive months, policymakers desperate to stoke job creation have bet heavily on green energy. The Obama administration channeled more than $90 billion from the $814 billion economic stimulus bill into clean energy technology, confident that the investment would grow into the economy’s next big thing.

What could go wrong? After all, if the administration is “confident”, there’s no reason to doubt, right? The Obama White House is know for nothing if not its clairvoyance (we’ll leave aside the question of why the “next big thing” would require subsidies). Oh, Mr. President, we hate to interrupt your dance with delusion, but reality would like to cut in:

The industry’s growth has been undercut by the simple economic fact that fossil fuels remain cheaper than renewables. Both Obama administration officials and green energy executives say that the business needs not just government incentives, but also rules and regulations that force people and business to turn to renewable energy.

Without government mandates dictating how much renewable energy utilities must use to generate electricity, or placing a price on the polluting carbon emitted by fossil fuels, they say, green energy cannot begin to reach its job creation potential.

Forget Afghanistan. Energy policy is the administration’s real parallel to Vietnam. We must destroy our energy sources in order to save them.

June 18th, 2010 at 10:30 am
Video: The Green Bailout
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In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino lambasts the Obama Administration and Congressional leadership for their shameless exploitation of the oil spill disaster in the Gulf to advance Cap-and-Trade:  their devastating plan to send energy prices skyrocketing.

 

June 16th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
California Gives the Lie to Obama’s Clean Energy Promises
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Why bother editorializing when — as lawyers and Romans would say — Res ipsa loquitur.

From President Obama’s Oval Office address last night:

When I was a candidate for this office, I laid out a set of principles that would move our country towards energy independence. Last year, the House of Representatives acted on these principles by passing a strong and comprehensive energy and climate bill – a bill that finally makes clean energy the profitable kind of energy for America’s businesses

Now, there are costs associated with this transition. And some believe we can’t afford those costs right now. I say we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy – because the long-term costs to our economy, our national security, and our environment are far greater.

From an article in today’s Ventura County Star about California’s draconian greenhouse gas regulations:

Californians need to acknowledge the full consequences of the state’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and accept the reality “that the net result of green policies may be negative for the economy,” says a report released today by the California Lutheran University Center for Economic Research and Forecasting…

The report examines economic studies in Europe, where the movement toward green jobs began. It finds the government costs of subsidizing jobs in the renewable energy sector have been excessive.

“In Germany, as in Spain, there is considerable belief that the job creation afforded by investment in renewables has been more than offset by the impact of more expensive energy, which has slowed consumption and investment elsewhere in the economy,” the report says.

In the U.S., it says, “Even as energy prices have increased, the growth of green jobs has been slower than expected. The evidence shows that green jobs and the regulations needed to spur them are expensive and hurt the economy.”

So, Mr. President, how long-term were you thinking exactly?

More on the economic lunacy in my new column reviewing the President’s speech last night.

February 11th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Video: Forget Green – We’ll Take Jobs of Any Color

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses why another taxpayer-funded stimulus package and government “investments” in so-called green jobs are not the answers to the nation’s future prosperity.

 

November 6th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Green Activists Using Conservative Arguments to Sell Climate Change Regulations

In a sign that trying to scare or shame people into supporting “climate change” regulation isn’t working, some Environmental groups are emphasizing the positive aspects of legislating in the Earth’s name. A sample:

Now, some groups have muted their alarms about wildfires, shrinking glaciers and rising seas. Not because they’ve stopped caring about them — but because they’re trying to win over people who might care more about a climate bill’s non-environmental side benefits, such as ‘green’ jobs and reduced oil imports.”

Perhaps the best evidence that the Environmental Left is learning the popularity of arguing for American held jobs and reducing our dependence on foreign oil is the opening statement by an activist to a group of college students in Kansas:

Take climate change off the table, okay?” Jackson said, after reciting evidence that the climate really is changing. “You don’t have to buy it for everything I’m about to say, because everything we do [to combat climate change] is a good idea for at least three other reasons.”

Not all Environmental groups agree with this new wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing approach.  Their intent to keep focusing on alarming the public about impending doom makes it difficult to know who to root for.  On the one hand, it’s nice to know at least some people on the Left want to maintain truth in advertising.  On the other, it’s a compliment of sorts to have the opposition parroting conservative arguments because they’re persuasive to neutral audiences.  Either way, the discord won’t  help pass climate change legislation.  Thank goodness.