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Top 10 reasons to elect anybody but Obama. [#3] The Republican candidates are all, to varying degrees, free-market capitalists. Not so with the current White House occupant, who favors picking winners and losers out of "fairness" or "to help the environment." So we sink billions into Solyndra and other bankrupt companies in the Utopian hope that creating green jobs will save the planet. As Chevy Volt sales indicate, consumer engineering is best to be left to the marketplace. Taxpayers Take Hit as Solar Industry Implodes. In a year where Solyndra became the face of the solar industry's chronic failures, even the holiday season could not prevent one last flurry of layoffs in 2011. The Mountain Enterprise (based in Frazier Park, Calif.) reported over the weekend that First Solar, Inc. — which the media sometimes identifies as the largest solar company in the world — laid off half its employees on Friday [12/30/2012] at its Antelope Valley Solar Ranch One project. Time to redefine green jobs in community context. To this day, I am bemused at how anyone can look at job creation and land use in isolation, without looking at the overall societal impact of an action that is supported because it will "create jobs." This is nowhere as evident as in the dialogue about how the construction of industrial wind facilities will create green jobs. Vestas Cuts 2,335 Jobs With More at Risk This Year in U.S.. Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS), the world's biggest wind turbine maker, said it will halt production at one factory and cut 2,335 jobs, or 10 percent of its staff, to become more competitive with Chinese suppliers. The changes are aimed at saving more than 150 million euros ($191 million) by the end of 2012, the company based in Aarhus, Denmark, said today in a statement. Vestas said another 1,600 jobs in the U.S. are at risk as a tax credit supporting the industry expires at year-end. Clean green fraud. The spectacular failure of Solyndra opened a lot of eyes. Yet the bankrupt solar panel manufacturer is far from the only fly-by-night outfit to take advantage of the current "green energy" fad. No program is more ripe for abuse than the renewable fuel standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Last week, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, Michigan Republican, and Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield, Kentucky Republican, opened their own investigation into the fraudulent outfits that sell tradeable biodiesel fuel credits to legitimate companies that need to meet the arbitrary mandates established by the EPA and Congress. Obama's Amazing Energy Spin Machine. The bankruptcy of Ener1, a "green energy" firm that got a $118 million stimulus grant, has brought the Obama administration's commitment to sinking billions of dollars into alternative energy boondoggles back into the spotlight. Unfortunately, President Obama remains committed to continuing down this wasteful path, as his statements about energy in his recent State of the Union Address made clear. While the president spent more time on the topic than any other policy area, he distorted the facts, misrepresented his plans, and ignored his record. Another Green Energy Company Stumbles: Fisker Announces Layoffs. Fisker Automotive, the maker of an exotic electric sports car that is being built with help from a $529 million federal government loan guarantee, has announced layoffs at its Delaware plant as it tries to persuade the Department of Energy to send it more public funds. Is Fisker the next Solyndra? Fisker Automotive looks like it is on its way to a slow-motion crash, which would leave taxpayers on the hook for more than a half-billion through a loan the Obama administration co-signed. The company makes electric/hybrid luxury cars in Finland that are sold in the United States. In January, the company recalled all its 2012 Karma cars because they were fire hazards. Fortunately, only 239 of them had been sold. Now layoffs have begun. Solyndra Casts Pall over 'Green Jobs' Promises. Endowed with the blessings of the Obama administration and a loan guarantee of more than half-a-billion dollars from the U.S. Department of Energy, Solyndra LLC of Fremont, California has gone from the poster child of green energy to an orphan shunned by its former supporters. Instead of becoming a Mecca for green jobs and employing thousands of workers as promised, Solyndra has shuttered its factory and fired all 1,100 of its employees. $490,000 Green Stimulus Grant Produced 1.72 Jobs. A "green stimulus" grant of nearly half-a-million dollars to grow trees in Nevada produced only 1.72 permanent jobs, according to the federal government's Recovery.gov Web site. Although the green stimulus was advertised as a key component of "shovel-ready" jobs designed to boost employment rates immediately, the recipient of the funds now admits the grant had nothing to do with creating jobs. An Administration's Green Fiascos Pile Up. The Solyndra fiasco is the highest-profile of the president's many green failures, but it's hardly the only one. Barely a week goes by but that we learn of yet another government-funded "clean energy" boondoggle. Let's consider a few examples. DOE-Backed Green Energy Company Amonix Lays Off Two-Thirds of Workforce. Just seven months after California-based solar power company Amonix Inc. opened its largest manufacturing plant, in North Las Vegas, the company's contractor has laid off nearly two-thirds of its workforce. Flextronics Industrial, the Singapore solar panel manufacturer that partnered with Amonix to staff the new $18 million, 214,000-square-foot plant, laid off about 200 of its 300-plus employees Tuesday [1/31/2012]. More Solyndra-style failure: Obama-tied Amonix Inc lays off most of company. Some of President Barack Obama's top donors and fundraising bundlers are partners in Amonix Inc., the latest Solyndra-like corporate crash. The company has announced a layoff of 200 workers — two-thirds of its workforce — despite a federal green-technology tax credit of $5.9 million in 2010. USDA loan program 'creates' jobs for $2.5M each. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today [1/26/2012] announced his second bio-fuels loan guarantee in a week, revealing that the Agriculture Department (USDA) is slated to loan an Oregon biorefinery $232.5 million for a project expected to create 65 jobs and support 38 others. When Will We Awake From Obama's Bad Green Dream? The Obama administration promised a future with a clean, green economy. Instead, it's left us with failed government "investments" in projects driven by politics rather than prudence. Chris Horner Testifies on the Folly of Green Energy Policy. [Scroll down] More recently, the man who is now President Obama's chief science advisor, the climate activist John Holdren, used to publicly argue that we had too much energy, and that less efficient energy was much better for the economy because it required more workers. This is an extension of the newly fashionable argument that our economic troubles are due to automation, from ATMs to the horrors of ticketing kiosks at airports. Presumably shovel-ready jobs were a bad idea at the outset because they should properly have been spoon-ready, instead. Regardless, "jobs" is not an argument. There is no program that does not "create jobs" in the same way that these schemes do. The collapse of the green-energy bubble. The parallel-energy universe known as renewables, a place where dollars and economic theory know no bounds and make no sense, looks increasingly like a bubble set to collapse. The Non-Green Jobs Boom. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported recently that the U.S. jobless rate remains a dreadful 9%. But look more closely at the data and you can see which industries are bucking the jobless trend. One is oil and gas production, which now employs some 440,000 workers, an 80% increase, or 200,000 more jobs, since 2003. Oil and gas jobs account for more than one in five of all net new private jobs in that period. Green Energy Is Awash in Red Ink. American people are beginning to notice that the "green energy" is not so green after all, it is awash in red ink. "Green jobs" were being promised all over Europe when Spanish voters swept into power the Socialist party in 2004. More entitlements and withdrawal from the war in the Middle East were the icing on the cake. The Socialists presided initially over a period of sustained economic growth. Today Spain has 5 million unemployed, a huge public debt, and the "indignados" (the indignants) who are a small and disruptive minoritarios. DOE Inspector General: Over 100 Criminal Investigations Of Obama Stimulus Spending. The Inspector General of the Energy Department, Gregory Friedman, has been investigating the fate of the $35.2 billion his department received from the Obama "stimulus" disaster in 2009. ... When work did get done, the results were not impressive. The Weatherization Program enjoyed a one thousand percent increase in funding, but Friedman reports that "weatherization work was often of poor quality," and "9 of the 17 weatherized homes we visited failed inspections because of substandard workmanship." Your Cash for Their Clunkers. Here's some investment advice: When looking for tips on green technology plays, steer clear of the stock pickers located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They've made a habit of investing your cash in their clunkers. Following on Solyndra's great success comes Ener1 Inc., a lithium-ion battery maker also promoted by the White House. ... Ener1 was founded in 2002, went public in 2008 and has never turned a profit. In August, it restated its earnings for fiscal 2010 at a $165 million loss — nearly $100 million more than previously reported. $6,136,000 per job: Broke Green Co. Greases Director Six Figures for Obama Loans. A financially-troubled Canadian alternative energy company with ties to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid paid a director the lion's share of $758,828 (CAD) in reported consulting fees, according to an analysis of the filings made by the company. ... In the June filings for Canadian-based Nevada Geothermal, which according to the New York Times employs only 22 people in Nevada, the company's auditors issued "going-concern" warnings that without additional investment or revenues, the company could cease operations. At stake is about $135 million in financing by the federal government including loan guarantees and grants, says the Times. Pop Goes the Green Jobs Bubble. Obama's 2009 $787 billion stimulus package included $500 million for training programs that were supposed to create new green jobs for thousands of middle-class Americans. Last month, however, the Department of Labor's inspector general conducted an audit that found that as of June 30 — with one-third of the funds spent and more than 50,000 participants — only 10 percent of trainees were placed in jobs. And only 1,336 participants, or 2 percent, had held jobs for six months or longer. Labor Dept. Program Spends $121,000 Per Green Job. The Department of Labor has spent $162 million on its own green jobs program, which has found steady work for just 1,336 people as of June. That's just 2% of what the program targeted. About those 5 million 'green jobs' that were supposed to be created... As a snake oil salesman, Obama would have been a natural. ... Only an idiot or a crook would have believed the pledge by candidate Obama to create 5 million green jobs over a decade in which government would spend $150 billion on green energy. Free-Market Green Jobs for $2.63 a Day. The administration has just approved another $5 billion (or about 115,740 gardeners for reference) in loan guarantees for these types of programs, including one to an enterprise that Nancy Pelosi's brother-in-law is tied to (can you spell c-r-o-n-y?). And as I write, there is new news that the $500-million green jobs training program came up short on its goals. 'Green jobs' farm in Colorado sheds jobs after receiving $200M in stimulus funds. President Barack Obama's "green jobs" initiatives suffered another major blow late Monday [10/3/2011], as the nonprofit National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado, announced a plan to lay off roughly 10 percent of its staff through a voluntary buy-out plan. According to the Denver Post, the lab plans to eliminate between 100 and 150 of its 1,350 jobs. Ten Lessons from Obama. [#4] Fairly or not, "green" no longer denotes a noble effort to conserve resources and achieve energy independence. A Van Jones, a Solyndra, yet another promise to emulate Spain's windmills and solar plants, one more call to borrow hundreds of billions for high-speed rail, and more Al Gore profit-driven escapades and fiery outbursts finally add up. Note that the president simply cannot any longer repeat the mantra, "Millions of new green jobs." You see, there are too many video clips of such boasts associated with failed ventures. The age of Obama has turned "green" into a refuge for scoundrels. Nevada Geothermal Power: The Next Solyndra? The New York Times reports on another "politically connected clean energy start-up that has relied heavily on an Obama administration loan guarantee and is now facing financial turmoil." DOE OKs $4.7 Bil In Loan Guarantees For (Maybe) 92 Permanent Green Energy Jobs. With a deadline of today to finish several major green-energy loan guarantees, the Energy Department announced the completion of four of those loans for solar power projects this afternoon, together totaling more than $4.7 billion. The number of permanent, full-time jobs these projects will create? About 92. That's nearly $52 million per job. $737 Million Green Jobs Loan Given to Nancy Pelosi's Brother-In-Law. It's increasingly hard to tell the government's green jobs subsidies apart from the Democrats' friends and family rewards program. As usual, $2 million per job. Spanish-Owned Firm Receives $132 Million Loan Guarantee From Energy Department. Just one day before the controversial federal loan program that backed bankrupt solar company Solyndra was to end, a Spanish-owned firm received a $132 million loan guarantee. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced Thursday [9/29/2011] that Abengoa Bioenergy Biomass would receive the guarantee to support the development of a commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant that is estimated to create 300 construction jobs and 65 permanent jobs in Kansas. Why America's Future Job Growth Lies In Traditional Energy Industries. How about those "green jobs" so widely touted as the way to recover the lost blue-collar positions from the recession? Since 2006, the critical waste management and remediation sector — a critical portion of the "green" economy — actually lost over 480,000 jobs, 4% of its total employment. Pay here is lower still, averaging something like $32,000 annually, about one-third that of the conventional energy sector. The future of the rest of the "green" sector seems dimmer than widely anticipated. DOE Mulls Green Energy Loans At $20 Million Per Job. The Energy Department on Wednesday approved federal loan guarantees for two green energy projects totaling more than $1 billion. It approved $337 million for a Mesquite Solar project in Arizona and $737 million for a Solar Reserve project in Nevada. The projects would create a total of 52-55 permanent jobs, according to earlier DOE figures and company statements. That's about $20 million per permanent job. Top 10 Green Job Fiascos. [#5] Weatherizing stupidity: The city of Seattle received $20 million in federal stimulus money to help homeowners make their houses more energy-efficient. Some 16 months later, 14 jobs were created and three homes were weatherized. Most of the money went to a company to train workers to weatherize buildings, but the lack of demand for the service meant those trainees had no work to do. Issa's committee: Obama's 'green jobs' push is 'propaganda'. President Obama's push to create "green jobs" is "nothing more than a propaganda tool" that has resulted in minimal benefits for the economy, a report set to be released by Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Thursday [9/22/2011] says. The staff report, which was obtained by The Hill, is the latest missive in a frontal assault by Republicans on the Obama administration's pledge to create millions of green jobs. Obama officials play defense during 'green jobs' hearing. U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis admitted Thursday morning [9/22/2011] during a congressional hearing that she and the Obama administration believe driving a bus that happens to run on "clean energy" should count as a "green job." Republicans Grill Officials Over 'Offensive' Definition of Green Jobs. In a series of tense exchanges, Republicans on a House oversight panel sharply questioned whether the Obama administration was looking to inflate the number of "green" jobs by using a broad definition — which, as it turns out, counts virtually anybody working in mass transit. Solyndra scandal unraveling Obama's credibility. An Energy Department analysis of Solyndra's business model performed two years ago predicted that the firm would run out of money in September 2011. But that fact was ignored by the president and his political advisers who wanted a "green jobs" photo op, no matter the cost. $10,888,000 per job. Obama green-tech program that backed Solyndra struggles to create jobs. A $38.6 billion loan guarantee program that the Obama administration promised would create or save 65,000 jobs has created just a few thousand jobs two years after it began, government records show. The program — designed to jump-start the nation's clean technology industry by giving energy companies access to low-cost, government-backed loans — has directly created 3,545 new, permanent jobs after giving out almost half the allocated amount, according to Energy Department tallies. 200K Businesses Are Not Billionaires! Americans are already aware of what happened to bankrupt Solyndra when over $500 Million was just thrown away on Green Technology costing 10.88 million per job! Now, the President is geared to add to that failure with other programs by taking even more money away from small business via higher taxes! Snitch I must. Mr. President, I know you're a pretty busy fellow with a full schedule of speeches and golf so you may not have heard about the $38.6 Billion in green loan guarantees that Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Jonathan Silver, executive director of the Energy Department's loan office have been giving out and/or approving. You need to be told that over the past two and half years they have created only about 3,545 jobs. Well Mr. President, that comes to about $10,888,575 per job. ... Our friends in the main stream media will only be able to keep a lid on this for so long. Obama green-tech program that backed Solyndra struggles to create jobs. A $38.6 billion loan guarantee program that the Obama administration promised would create or save 65,000 jobs has created just a few thousand jobs two years after it began, government records show. The program — designed to jump-start the nation's clean technology industry by giving energy companies access to low-cost, government-backed loans — has directly created 3,545 new, permanent jobs after giving out almost half the allocated amount, according to Energy Department tallies. When going green goes south instead. What could be more beautiful, never mind seductive, than the strategy to promote renewable energies and a "green economy," heralded as cure-alls for America's greatest challenges, most particularly economic stagnation? But a funny thing happened on the way to green utopia. High-paying, clean-tech jobs were a cornerstone of the 2009 stimulus bill, which appropriated $80 billion to promote the "green economy." Yet, instead of putting us on the green-brick road to recovery, we've learned that subsidizing industry merely results in red — lost jobs, squandered taxpayer resources, scandalous bankruptcies and diminished prosperity. Solyndra Workers Looking for Non-Green Jobs. And if you needed more proof that "green" jobs are a myth, the workers of Solyndra are applying for government assistance to learn a new trade: ["]Ex-employees of the failed solar panel company Solyndra have applied for aid under the federal government's Trade Adjustment Assistance program, the Labor Department has confirmed.["] Don't Have Delusions About Green Jobs. [Scroll down] The hope expressed by President Obama that the transition to a new energy future can double as a way to preserve the mass production workforce of the mid-20th century seems at best delusive, at worst a cruel hoax — and actually most of the time a distraction from other more immediate and relevant economic problems. The president's talk of green jobs reminds me of how the "Atari Democrats" of the 1980s used to muse that the industrial workforce displaced by the economic changes of the 1970s could find work making semiconductors. Obama's "Green Economy" Debacle. With the United States' official poverty rate now at a seventeen year high of 15.1 percent — and an actual poverty level that may be substantially higher — the absurdity of President Obama's advocacy of so-called 'green jobs' is increasingly clear. Promises of green jobs start withering on vine. Despite billions of dollars in federal investment and cheerleading from President Obama, even the most ardent supporters of a transformed, job-generating energy sector based largely on wind, solar and other renewable sources acknowledge that their dreams have not translated into reality. The records for other countries chasing green employment opportunities have been equally unimpressive. Obama Crony Socialism on Parade. [Scroll down] GM is now neck-deep in "green" non-energy energy. Of the oh-so-successful Solyndra sort. They last year received more clean (non-energy) energy patents than any other organization. They are dramatically ramping up production of the unprofitable and unselling hybrid Chevy Volt. And creating a like-model for Cadillac. They have fitted an (again, unprofitable) Volt plant so as to be solar-powered. Which cost $3 million — but only saves them $15,000 a year in electricity. It is not the government's job to create jobs. Green Jobs! From Mount Olympus our Scientist-in-Chief descends to Earth to grant us environmentally friendly jobs that pay more, require fewer hours and will stop the oceans from rising. Green Pigs Don't Fly. Reportedly, Obama's jobs speech will focus on infrastructure spending, and much of that spending will undoubtedly be tied to the creation of "green jobs." The problem is, what he has already spent has not created jobs. According to the Heritage Foundation, it may well have cost jobs. It has, however, enriched some of his wealthiest political contributors. And that seems to be the real motive behind the president's infrastructure spending. Not green jobs, but green pork. Solar gold. I am convinced that the green jobs that Barack Obama promised were simply a politically correct conduit to funnel taxpayer cash to the politically connected. The Green Jobs, Clean Energy Scam. There will probably never be a definitive calculation of how much money the United States (and other nations) has wasted on Green programs, litigation, grants, research, and projects such as those involving "renewable" or "clean" energy. It will surely add up to several trillion because it has been going on for a very long time through administrations reaching back to Jimmy Carter's and Richard Nixon's. Obama: $43m more for 'wind energy' green jobs. President Barack Obama's administration rolled out a spending-heavy green energy package Thursday morning [9/7/2011], just hours before the economically embattled chief executive will give his "jobs plan" speech to a rare joint session of Congress. Seattle: $20 Million Grant Creates 14 "Green" Jobs. Seattle reaped the benefit of a $20 million federal grant to weatherize homes in one of America's "greenest" cities, and 16 months later, a whopping 14 jobs were created — making the cost per job a wondrous $1,428,571. "The jobs are not there," Todd Myers, author of the book Eco Fads, told Fox News. Obama blows another billion on green fantasies. Last week, the Obama administration's Department of Energy announced it is extending an $852 million loan guarantee to something called the Genesis Solar Project in California. Genesis, according to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, will be built on federal land and ultimately employ perhaps 800 people during its construction and 47 people once it is up and running. This would seem to be a lot of money to generate very few jobs at a time when the nation is on the verge of bankruptcy, but the project really isn't about jobs. Where the Jobs Aren't. In his 2008 convention speech, Barack Obama promised to create five million green economy jobs. The U.S. Conference of Mayors estimated in April 2009 that green jobs could account for 10 percent of new job growth over the next 30 years. Alas, it was not to be. Green jobs? Wot green jobs? "Green jobs" are a chimera. Though diverting taxpayers money into the renewable energy sector may indeed "create" jobs in the renewable energy sector, it will cost many more jobs in the broader economy. ... These same policies will, on top of that £250 billion cost, reduce GDP by 2 per cent to 3 percent for at least ten years. This will cost Britain the equivalent of 60 percent of the amount the government spends each year on primary and secondary education. Renewable energy will cost £120 billion — making it 9 to 10 times more expensive than energy from conventional sources. Obama's Bad Bet on Green Energy. Obama and Biden were literally invested in Solyndra's success. The company got a half-billion-dollar federal loan guarantee, the first in a highly vaunted Department of Energy green-jobs program, as part of the stimulus. This was supposed to be the new economic model: government and its favored industries cooperating to lead the country into a green, politically approved recovery. The showcase firm is now filing for Chapter 11 in an embarrassing blow to the premises of Obamanomics. More about Solyndra. Green Jobs' Arteries Clogged By Davis-Bacon. President Obama's green jobs agenda has become a victim of its own red tape. Several internal reports show that state-level projects have stalled for years due to federal regulations favored by labor and green groups — big boosters of the green jobs push. ... In 2009, Obama dedicated $7.2 billion of stimulus funds to build "clean tech" jobs. He vowed to create 5 million jobs over the next decade. So far, that effort has "created or retained" just 7,140 jobs, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That's about $1 million per job. The Department of Energy is not a business. Only someone investing other people's money, in this case the taxpayer's, could look at a half-a-billion dollar loss and call it a "success." Since the Energy Department is driven by ideology, not profit and loss signals, the American taxpayer is going to continue to lose money on failures like Solyndra. And as more stimulus "investments" in unsustainable companies dry up, more Americans will become unemployed. Seattle Green Jobs Program Gets $20M, Creates 14 Posts. A green jobs program in one of America's greenest cities is being called a bust 16 months after a $20 million federal grant to weatherize homes in Seattle ended up putting just 14 people to work in mostly administrative jobs and upgrading only three homes in the area. "The jobs are not there," Todd Myers, who wrote the book "Eco Fads," told Fox News. "So we're training people for jobs that don't exist." Promise of Jobs from Solar, Wind Power a Hard Sell in the Desert. Nevada is now by some measures the top producer of solar power in the country and home to some of the largest solar arrays in the world. But it also has the nation's highest unemployment rate. Energy Obamanomics: No green jobs and plenty of red ink. So, how well have President Obama's "green jobs" initiatives fared? The president recently toured Johnson Controls Inc., a Michigan company that received $300 million from "Obama's stash" to create — drumroll, please — a whopping 150 jobs. Do the math: That's $2 million per green job. And this is the company the White House chooses to showcase? Leave the Driving to Us! Yesterday one of the stimulus-fattened alternative energy companies Obama propped up went bankrupt. So much for green jobs. Maxine Waters: Green Jobs Are a Lot of Talk. Just this week, we had the story of a Seattle initiative that blew a cool $20 million in taxpayer money to create fourteen jobs. An even worse dollars-to-jobs ration was achieved at Johnson Controls in Michigan, where $300 million was spent to create 150 jobs to manufacture batteries for electric cars. Obama toured this plant as a "green jobs" success story earlier in August. Evergreen Solar files for bankruptcy, plans asset sale. Evergreen Solar Inc., the Massachusetts clean-energy company that received millions in state subsidies from the Patrick administration for an ill-fated Bay State factory, has filed for bankruptcy, listing $485.6 million in debt. Evergreen, which closed its taxpayer-supported Devens factory in March and cut 800 jobs, has been trying to rework its debt for months. Wasted Stimulus. During the 2008 campaign, candidate Barack Obama said he would create 5 million well-paying "green" jobs within 10 years. Politico has reported that "he's spent considerable time since entering the White House trying to make that happen." Indeed he has, though there has been no payoff. Yet he refuses give up on his quixotic quest. Last week Obama toured to much fanfare a Johnson Controls plant in Michigan where $300 million in conservation grants produced 150 jobs — at a cost of $2 million per position. Obama's Stimulus Created 'Green' Jobs at $2 Million Per Job. President Barack Obama on Thursday [8/11/2011] toured a vehicle battery plant in Michigan, touting his administration's focus on green technology and jobs, at a corporation where federal money authorized by the economic stimulus law that Obama signed at the beginning of his presidency had created "green" jobs at a cost of about $2 million in federal subsidies per job. EPA Regulation Would Cost $1.2 Million Per Job Created. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been promoting the job creation and health aspects of its impending regulations on the electric industry, but in congressional testimony an agency official admitted the impending regulations would cost business $10.9 billion and create only 9,000 full time jobs. The Global Warming Hoax: How Soon We Forget. While Americans are rightfully focused on the unemployment situation and the debt limit negotiations, we've pretty much forgotten about global warming as an issue ever since Obama failed to pass his Cap & Trade bill. As a result, we're becoming complacent once again about the huge threat we face from the progressives' attempts to control the world's energy industry based on the greatest scientific hoax in human history. In reality, however, nothing's changed, as Obama is still imposing his will on us through the EPA's regulation of CO2. This hoax still threatens our economy, while advancing the UN's "Agenda 21" in more ways than one. It's also the foundation of Obama's "green jobs" approach to the unemployment issue, since the very concept of "green jobs" is just as bogus as the idea of a "carbon footprint." Top 10 Examples Proving Obama Wants High Energy Prices. During his acceptance speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama promised that if elected President, he would "invest $150 billion over the next decade in renewable energy -- an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs." Nearly a quarter of the way into that dream, Obama's own Council of Economic Advisers says that only 225,000 green energy jobs were created or "saved" after an $80 billion down payment from the stimulus package -- an astounding $335,000 per job. Green Energy Fantasy. The hope is that these government sticks and carrots will turn today's pitiful "green energy" industry, which produces an insignificant fraction of American energy, into a source of abundant, affordable energy that can replace today's fossil-fuel-dominated industry. This view is a fantasy — one that could devastate America's economy. The reality is that "green energy" is at best a sophisticated make-work program. The Green Jobs Myth: Even if we could find evidence that green energy is more labor intensive than its brown counterpart, that's an argument against green energy because one does not go about creating wealth by maximizing the inputs associated with production. Were that the case, one might suggest that future green energy facilities (and brown, for that matter) be built without any mechanized construction equipment whatsoever — only hand tools allowed! The "Green" Jobs Canard. For too long, politicians, environmentalists and subsidized proponents of "green" jobs have been peddling the notions that "investing" in green technologies is the illuminating endeavor and beneficent job creator of our time. With scant evidence, these green jobs postulates are bulwarked by so much hot air it rivals the amount of subsidized dollars used to sustain them. The main dilemma of green jobs and investing is that they defy the reality of basic economics. Obama's Green-Jobs Fantasies. In judging any government initiative, such as Obama's green-jobs plan, you can't look just at the credit side of ledger because the government is unable to give without first taking away. Worse than that: Inevitably, more is taken away — destroyed — than is given because the government substitutes force and taxation for consent and free exchange. Instead of a process driven by consumer preferences, we get one imposed by politicians' grand social designs. It's what F.A. Hayek called "the fatal conceit." How Green Is Your Lost Job? A study of renewable energy in Scotland shows that for every job created in the alternative energy sector, almost four jobs are lost in the rest of the economy. We've seen this movie before. Obama's Edifice Complex. Obama's justifies his plans by touting "green jobs". This is a fiction. Any green jobs generated come at great cost and are often temporary. A fringe benefit for Obama is that these federally-funded projects often go to union members and are subject to the Davis-Bacon act that requires high wages be paid on federally-funded projects, a subtle method of replenishing the union coffers for the next election cycle. Killer Green Jobs. As has been well publicized, Spain lost 2.2 jobs lost per 'green jobs' created. Italy lost 4.8 jobs per 'created' job. And, today, from the UK, 3.7 jobs lost. Which is why all of the EU countries are stepping back from what they created. The real cost of 'global warming'. [Scroll down] When pressed on this, politicians talk airily of all the "Green jobs" which will ensue from "investment" (ie massive taxpayer subsidy) in renewables and of all the "energy security" which will result. The chutzpah required to come out with this guff is astonishing given that there is not a scintilla of real-world evidence to back up these claims. We already know that wind and solar power have proved a disaster in Germany, Denmark and Spain (where Dr Gabriel Calzada Alvarez calculated that for every "green job" the country had destroyed 2.2 jobs in the real economy). We also know that because of the unreliability of wind power, it has to be permanently backed up by conventional power. Green Jobs Are Not Evergreen Jobs. After receiving at least $43 million in aid from the state of Massachusetts, Evergreen Solar announced last month that it would be closing its manufacturing plant in Devens, Mass., laying off its 800 workers and moving its manufacturing operations to China. ... These are the "green jobs" that President Obama has touted as part of his "winning the future" agenda. The Unseen Consequences of "Green Jobs". A new report, "Defining, Measuring, and Predicting Green Jobs," by University of Texas economist Gurcan Gulen, issued by the Copenhagen Consensus Center, takes apart many studies predicting that policies mandating alternative energy production, energy efficiency, and conservation will create a boom in employment. First, Gulen notes that many such studies fail to define clearly what they mean by green jobs. He points out that many pro-green jobs studies do not distinguish temporary construction jobs from more permanent operation jobs. Many studies also assume that green jobs will pay more than jobs in conventional energy production. But why would a construction job at a wind farm pay more than one at a conventional power plant? Green-energy plant sucks up subsidies, then goes bust. To turn wood chips into ethanol fuel, George W. Bush's Department of Energy in February 2007 announced a $76 million grant to Range Fuels for a cutting-edge refinery. ... Last month, the refinery closed down, having failed to squeeze even a drop of ethanol out of its pine chips. The Soperton, Ga., ethanol plant is another blemish on ethanol's already tarnished image, but more broadly, it is cautionary tale about the elusive nature of "green jobs" and the folly of the government's efforts at "investing" — as President Obama puts it — in new technologies. Spain's Solar Industry Leading U.S. to Nowhere. A report last week estimates that the Spanish solar industry has lost more than 30,000 jobs since 2008, due to the rollback of solar subsidies. Solar Panel Maker Moves Work to China. Aided by at least $43 million in assistance from the government of Massachusetts and an innovative solar energy technology, Evergreen Solar emerged in the last three years as the third-largest maker of solar panels in the United States. But now the company is closing its main American factory, laying off the 800 workers by the end of March and shifting production to a joint venture with a Chinese company in central China. Evergreen cited the much higher government support available in China. Anti-Energy Left Comes Unglued as 'Green Economy' Claims Collapse. The anti-energy lobby, surrogates for Big Wind and Big Solar, is now backed into a rhetorical corner in its effort to impose its agenda of protecting the world from the horrors of affordable, abundant energy. ... The anti-energy Left wants you to have the energy you need, that is if you agree with them that you don't 'need' very much. They want energy scarcity. It is fair to say they want energy poverty. And they are willing to say anything to get it. Except they are reduced to remarkably weak claims. Guys, your precious renewables are rat holes. Going Broke by Going Green. [Scroll down] As to "green" jobs, Competitive Enterprise Institute energy analyst Chris Horner calculates that the stimulus bill's subsidies for wind and solar mean taxpayers are billed $475,000 for each job created. Texas Comptroller Susan Combs reports that property tax breaks for wind projects in her state cost nearly $1.6 million per job. "Green energy" is simply unsustainable, environmentally and economically. Revolt brewing in Spain over 'green energy' crisis. So here's the latest from our president's erstwhile glorious peoples' economic model — which he, oddly, no longer cites — socialist Spain, where a revolt is brewing. It is by now fairly well-known in these parts, to the great embarrassment of the Obama administration, that the Spanish government's "green economy" power grab that Obama so often publicly praised actually proved to be enormously destructive. As is pretty much always the case with the greens' harebrained schemes these days. Green Jobs Promises Dwindle as Obama Policies Backfire. The subject of green jobs was conspicuously absent from President Barack Obama's most recent $50 billion stimulus proposal. By contrast, about $92 billion in taxpayer funds — more than 11 percent of Obama's original $814 billion stimulus package, enacted in early 2009 — went to an assortment of renewable energy projects. But the jobs that were supposed to be created never materialized — at least not in the United States. Obama's Green Economy Mirage. In 2008, 1.2 billion cell phones were made and sold worldwide. Not one was made in the USA. Dell, one of the largest manufacturers of computers, closed its last plant in Winston-Salem in November and laid off 900 workers. Computer manufacturing in the U.S. employs fewer Americans in 2010 than it did in 1975. Printed circuit boards were perfected in the U.S. after World War II and are used in thousands of products worldwide. 84% of circuit boards are now made in Asia. In 2001, the U.S. ranked fourth in per capita broadband Internet use; today we rank 15th. What next? Obama has touted the "green economy" as the answer to the need for new good paying jobs. It's not happening either. Green Jobs Not Growing As Expected. The Obama Administration channeled $90 billion of the $870 billion dollar stimulus package towards the new green economy. The hope was that a national move from fossil energy to green energy would not only be good, long term, for the environment, but that the transition could also be a jobs' driver, which would help resuscitate the overall economy. But two years into Obama's administration, the White House has reported it's helped create 224,500 green jobs, far short of the 5 million it had openly predicted. The Editor says... That's $400,890 per job created. Cap-And-Trade Tosses An Anchor To Drowning California Economy. On Friday [12/17/2010], the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the bureaucracy charged with implementing AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, adopted a cap-and-trade scheme to reduce California's greenhouse gas emissions by about 15% by 2020. CARB's regulations go into effect in 2012. The unelected officials at CARB intend to reorder California's use of energy. In so doing they blandly declaim that their rules will create jobs while admitting to higher energy costs and a slowing economy. Somehow, this formula is transmogrified by CARB analysts into net job creation. Given the immutable laws of math, one is forced to calculate that CARB's actions will "create" low-paying jobs at the expense of good jobs. What the Election Means for Greens. In President Obama's erstwhile model, Spain, it cost them $750,000 per (temporary) "green job," placing the nation's energy infrastructure and economy in peril and its politics in crisis. Once constituencies become dependent on these schemes, they are extremely difficult to halt. Yet all over Europe, Obama's previously touted model states are struggling to rein in the subsidy schemes which threatened to expand the Greek "contagion." These are economic black holes paying small fortunes for each job created, crowding out private-sector growth, and displacing real jobs that respond to market forces with temporary jobs that disappear once the subsidy does. Meanwhile, they create higher energy costs, which make them much worse than other make-work programs like ditch-digging. WaPo Exposes Reality of Unemployed "Green Jobs". In a front page story today, the Washington Post — of all places! — revealed that unemployment for so-called "green jobs" is pretty darn high. You mean, all the Obama and enviro promises about green jobs being the next, great economic boom were ... wrong? People aren't voluntarily choosing to pay more for "clean energy"? Who could have guessed that the Great Green Dream has been "undercut by the simple economic fact that fossil fuels remain cheaper than renewables"? The Green Bubble is about to Burst. [Scroll down] The White House claims that the federal cash subsidy will create three hundred permanent jobs (at about $3 million per job!). The nature of the jobs is not specified, but one may assume that there will be much need for sweepers to remove dust and dirt from about 7,000 acres of solar mirrors. Not exactly "high-tech," is it? California's Green Nightmare. It's hard to know where the fairy tale of "green jobs" first came from. It was probably a clever marketing scheme by radical environmentalists who realized that their anti-growth climate change agenda wasn't going to sell among the American electorate if workers realized how many jobs would be eviscerated by the new taxes and regulation. So, from somewhere out of Madison Avenue or K Street, the left devised the green jobs story line: we can impose a $1 trillion new tax on the U.S. economy over the next decade, and it will save jobs, as hundreds of thousands of Americans begin assembling windmills and solar paneling. Obama's 'Green' Energy Plan Infringes on Liberty. In numerous speeches, President Obama has stated that America's energy policy should be modeled after Europe's failed "green energy" project. During a speech in Ohio, Obama claimed that countries in Europe have superior energy policies, "And think of what's happening in countries like Spain, Germany and Japan, where they're making real investments in renewable energy. They're surging ahead of us, poised to take the lead in these new industries." In reality, Europe's experiments with government subsidized renewable energy and "green" jobs have been a costly disaster. Green lipstick on the stimulus pig. Jobs that carry the "sustainable" stamp of approval will siphon precious taxpayer resources away from the private sector. It's simply putting green lipstick on the stimulus pig that has squandered more than a trillion dollars with no positive effect on the jobless rate. California's Green Nightmare. It's hard to know where the fairy tale of "green jobs" first came from. It was probably a clever marketing scheme by radical environmentalists who realized that their anti-growth climate change agenda wasn't going to sell among the American electorate if workers realized how many jobs would be eviscerated by the new taxes and regulation. So, from somewhere out of Madison Avenue or K Street, the left devised the green jobs story line: we can impose a $1 trillion new tax on the U.S. economy over the next decade, and it will save jobs, as hundreds of thousands of Americans begin assembling windmills and solar paneling. Academic environmentalist arrogance. According to [an] ASU Magazine story, one Timonie Hood, a career environmental activist, works in the "'new green economy,' a fast-growing sector that carries with it great hope for economic growth." Really? What "hope" does the green economy provide? People that have placed "hope" in a "green economy" have come out worse for their trouble. Spain is the most notable example, where going green turned into an unemployment and economic disaster. One Job Forward, Two Jobs Back. The Great Obamanomic Job Creation Machine rumbled into action again over the Fourth of July weekend, promising to spend as much as $2 billion to support creation of 1,585 "permanent" jobs by two solar energy companies. That comes to a potential cost of over $1.25 million per job. Obama team uses flimflammery to inflate job numbers. Are you a financial adviser? You may not know it, but you've got a green job. Are you a wholesale buyer? You've got a green job, too. Or maybe you're a newspaper reporter. You, too, have a green job — at least according to the Obama administration. For months, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley has been pushing the administration to substantiate its claims of having created nearly 200,000 green jobs. More fundamentally, Grassley has asked Labor Secretary Hilda Solis to state clearly what a green job is. So far, he hasn't gotten an answer. Enviro jobs are fake-o jobs. Whatever "green jobs" are, it's very clear America doesn't want them. President Obama has been pushing a proposal that would spend more than $1 million for each permanent green job created in a solar-power boondoggle. Billions were placed at the disposal of avowed communist Van Jones to create these sparkling emeralds of environmentally sensitive employment even though no one in the administration can explain what they are. Obama awards huge loan guarantees to solar companies promising scant jobs gains. During his weekly address to the nation over the Fourth of July weekend, President Obama announced that the Department of Energy was awarding $2 billion in loan guarantees to two energy companies — Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing. The plan, Obama said, is for the companies to use the money to construct solar plants and panels to power thousands of homes — and create 5,000 jobs in the process. Only about 1,600 of those jobs are slated to be permanent, though, meaning that the total cost to the taxpayer for each permanent job would exceed $1 million. But over the past week, observers have questioned whether even that high figure accurately represents the total cost of the president's plan. The Green Wind Of Destruction. To say we're skeptical of the administration's claim that green jobs will bolster economic recovery is putting it mildly. It's much easier to believe that needless environmental rules will cause widespread job losses. Green Job Efforts Kill 2.2 for Every One Created. The Spanish government's renewable energy initiatives have destroyed 2.2 jobs for every new "green" job created, concludes a new study by economics professor Gabriel Calzada of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid. Calzada says American jobs will suffer the same fate if the United States similarly attempts to promote renewable energy at the expense of conventional energy sources. 'Anti-Lobbyist' Obama Administration Recruited Left-Wing Lobbyists to Sell Bogus 'Green Jobs'. A FOIA [request] reveals the Department of Energy turned to George Soros and to wind industry lobbyists to help cover up two economic studies pointing to the failure of European wind energy programs. DOE E-Mails To Wind Energy Lobbyists Cast Cloud Over Green Jobs Proposals. The Energy Department worked closely with the wind industry lobby to discredit a Spanish report that criticized wind power as a job killer, internal DOE e-mails reveal. The e-mails obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request show how, starting last April, lobbyists at the American Wind Energy Association became alarmed that lawmakers were citing a study by Spain's King Juan Carlos University. The study found that Spain's massive investments in wind power cost 2.2 jobs for every "green" job created. Unpleasant surprises buried in cap and trade. If cap and trade is an energy and global warming bill, why is a three-year package of unemployment benefits, job training and relocation expenses buried deep within its fine print? And why is a federally subsidized "job bank" needed if laid-off workers would quickly be rehired for higher paying "green" jobs? The fact that generous unemployment benefits are buried in the bill means that "green jobs are bunk," the conservative Heritage Foundation's Ben Lieberman told The Examiner. The Myth of 5 Million Green Jobs. [Scroll down] The central finding of the study is that — treating the data optimistically — for every renewable-energy job that the government finances, "Spain's experience reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created." Despite expensive and extensive green-job policies, a surprisingly low number of jobs were created. And about two-thirds of those "green" jobs were just to set up the energy source, in construction, fabrication, installation, marketing and administration. Only 10 percent of the green jobs created were permanent jobs actually operating and maintaining the renewable sources of energy. 'Green Jobs' Picture Mostly Shades of Gray. "Green jobs" have been touted as the silver bullet for the nation's growing unemployment problem, jolting the economy out of recession, ridding dependence on foreign oil, and making the environment cleaner. It's an enticing solution to cure much of what ails our country today. Unfortunately, such initiatives are often too good to be true, which requires a look into the underlying reality of the green jobs plan. Tilting at Green Windmills. The Spanish professor is puzzled. Why, Gabriel Calzada wonders, is the U.S. president recommending that America emulate the Spanish model for creating "green jobs" in "alternative energy" even though Spain's unemployment rate is 18.1 percent — more than double the European Union average — partly because of spending on such jobs? Calzada, 36, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, has produced a report which, if true, is inconvenient for the Obama administration's green agenda, and for some budget assumptions that are dependent upon it. 'Green jobs' studies contain fundamental flaws, think tank experts say. As Congress debates this week the Obama-Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade anti-global warming bill, its advocates frequently claim that moving to alternative energy sources will create legions of new "green jobs." Those claims are often backed by reference to one or more of a trio of supposedly scientific studies ... Problem is, accoding to Beacon Hill, all three are based on fundamentally flawed reasoning. Chortling At Chu. Subsidizing alternative energy fits the classic definition of insanity. Despite huge subsidies, it has proved to be neither cost-effective nor a reliable, significant contributor to our national power grid. Yet we keep subsidizing it, expecting a different result. Green-collar promises and realities. Energy-efficiency efforts have been ongoing for decades. Calling the relevant positions "green-collar" is good PR, but often merely redefines previously existing jobs and doesn't expand the actual employment base. The convenient fantasies of President Obama: If there were money to be made in green jobs, private investors would be creating them already. ... Big business is ready to create green jobs — if government subsidizes them. But the idea that green jobs will replace all the lost carbon-emitting jobs is magical thinking. Green Jobs and a Green Economy Will Fail Like Van Jones. Van Jones perpetuated the view that environment and climate change are ideal vehicles for advancing total government control. In 1993 former Senator Timothy Wirth, now Director of the UN Foundation, said, "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy." Italics in original. Obama Uses Feds to Protect His 'Green Jobs' Fantasy. On numerous occasions, to tout his own agenda President Obama told America to "take a look at what's happening in countries like Spain" to witness his model for a "green jobs" economy. Well, a team of Spaniards produced an academic study, officially of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid, which revealed that Spain's scheme has proven a disaster. Green jobs offer limited hope to Iowa. When the Pella Corp. closed its local factory last year, Story City looked to the booming wind industry to replace some of the nearly 250 lost jobs. In came NextEra Energy Resources, which agreed to invest $20 million in a facility at Story City to repair generators for the company's wind turbines in Iowa and other states. The number of jobs NextEra will create — 25 — represents only one-tenth of what was lost when Pella left. What Green Jobs? President Obama devoted nearly $60 billion of his stimulus package to building a new green-based economy rich in renewable energy and strategies to cut carbon. But despite the price tag, not one green job yet exists. It comes down to a problem of etymology. No one can yet agree on what a green job actually is. Obama's Green Jobs Program: $135,294 Per Job. [Scroll down] Obama says the grants will create 17,000 cleantech jobs. Well, get out your calculator. $2.3 billion for 17,000 jobs equals $135,294 per job. (And that's not including the eventual interest on this deficit spending). Those green jobs had better pay well over six figures to justify that expense. Not to worry, the administration has a plan to solve this, too. It wants Congress to approve another $5 billion for "tens of thousands" more green jobs. The Lies about Green Jobs. So-called Green jobs depend on two of the most impractical and unreliable sources of electricity generation. Solar and wind farms require backup by coal-fired and nuclear power sources for the blatantly obvious reason that the sun does not shine full-time, nor do the winds blow full-time. These, plus biofuel producers, are parked on the doorstep of Congress to secure the subsidies they need just to be in business; subsidies that are derived from our taxes. Unions Try to Monopolize Green Jobs. [Scroll down] One of the more startling revelations at the forum came in testimony from Stephen Worth, President & CEO of Worth and Company, a merit shop mechanical contractor out of Pipersville, Pennsylvania, currently employing more than 400 people. Amid testimony of union harassment and exclusion from contracting bids was a startling revelation of union methods to monopolize "green jobs" through illegitimate and discriminatory regulatory definition. Wind turbines fail in Minnesota's cold weather. President Obama is telling Americans to count on the creation of "green jobs" to help ease the rising unemployment in the country. These green energy failures only further the concern that pinning the country's economic salvation on the hopes of an industry still facing performance issues hardly makes any sense. New Wind Farms in the U.S. Do Not Bring Jobs. Nearly $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been spent on wind power, funding the creation of enough new wind farms to power 2.4 million homes over the past year. But [a recent] study found that nearly 80 percent of that money has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines. Think Color Of Money, Not Trees When It Comes To 'Green' Jobs. President Obama has spent billions on so-called green job programs as part of the economic recovery and plans to spend billions more. He has repeatedly argued this will create good-paying jobs that cannot be outsourced. But, according to the green groups themselves, these jobs can be highly expensive, often costing well more than $100,000 per job in subsidies and/or tax credits. Just last month, the White House said it was spending $135,294 per job to create 17,000 green jobs. The "Green Jobs" Scam Unmasked: According to a series of new reports, billions of dollars in "stimulus" money that was supposed to go toward creating "Green Jobs" here in America instead went to foreign-owned companies — who "created or saved" the vast majority of their jobs overseas. ... Worse still, the lunacy isn't stopping. We are continuing to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into this failed framework, which uses American sweat to create permanent positions (and profit) for foreign companies. A green-jobs tale, blowing in the wind. For a brief period last spring, a university study out of Spain whipped up excitement among Republicans on Capitol Hill — and brought heartburn to environmentalists and renewable-energy lobbyists in the process — because it purported to show that government support for "green jobs," a signature push by the Obama administration, ultimately hurts employment more than it helps. Green-Jobs Fantasy: A recent report from German think tank RWI sets out what happened in Germany. Titled "Economic Impacts from the Promotion of Renewable Energies: The German Experience," it illustrates how the German green-jobs initiative failed to meet any of its objectives. Taking jobs first, the report concluded that although at first glance the green-jobs program had been a great success, producing 278,000 extra jobs by 2009, once one takes into account offsetting factors, such as jobs lost from increased energy prices, the net number was negligible or even negative. ... The RWI found that the subsidy per job amounted to $240,000. Downgraded Spain decides to shelve worthless enviro-energy projects. They tried to crucify Gabriel Calzada for pointing out that their wind and solar programs were a big waste of money. But even the Spain's socialist government recognizes economic reality when default comes knocking. You can't keep spending $750,000 per "green" job created when you're going broke. Spanish paper: Obama driving off 'green energy' cliff. Chris Horner has been all over the story of Spain's unimpressive experience with green energy. Spanish newspapers have finally called out the U.S. President for choosing a failed model for a "Green Economy." Leaked Spanish Report: Obama's Model 'Green Economy' a Disaster. As predicted was inevitable, today the Spanish newspaper La Gaceta runs with a full-page article fessing up to the truth about Spain's "green jobs" boondoggle, which happens to be the one naively cited by President Obama no less than eight times as his model for the United States. It is now out there as a bust, a costly disaster that has come undone in Spain to the point that even the Socialists admit it, with the media now in full pursuit. The Green Jobs Myth. A Spanish economics professor said attempts by his country to create a green economy would fail. Now a Spanish government report confirms his findings, blunting claims that the professor's report was biased. 'Green New Deal' is a raw deal for the U.S.. In Europe, green ideas have been in fashion for two generations and have driven policy to a much greater extent than in the United States. Despite this, we have not witnessed a sizable green wave of new jobs, as evidenced by our unemployment rates, which are routinely several percentage points higher than in America. The green movement has succeeded in generating increased government spending and subsidies at taxpayer expense. Much of this spending has been directed toward inefficient renewable-energy projects, such as solar and wind power. Billions for 'green jobs,' whatever they are. Buried deep inside a federal newsletter on March 16 was something called a "notice of solicitation of comments" from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the Department of Labor. "BLS is responsible for developing and implementing the collection of new data on green jobs," said the note in the Federal Register, which is widely read by government bureaucrats and almost never seen by the general public. But the notice said there is "no widely accepted standard definition of 'green jobs.'" To help find that definition, the Labor Department asked that readers send in suggestions. Even Obama Is No Longer Pushing Green Jobs. [Scroll down] Whip out your calculators: 82,000 into $20 billion means those green jobs cost about $243,902 each. Let's hope they pay well. The high cost per job should come as no surprise; despite the hype from green groups and the administration, cleantech jobs generally require enormously expensive subsidies. For example, back in January, the administration was touting the $2.3 billion in manufacturing tax credits as creating 17,000 jobs — or about $135,294 per job. Even that tally proved to be overly optimistic, given the fact that many of those jobs went to other countries. Obama's Costly Green Jobs Project. The transcript of President Obama's weekly address on whitehouse.gov is titled, "President Obama Lauds Clean Energy Projects as Key to Creating." Creating what? one might ask. The word "Jobs" seems to be missing, perhaps like the jobs themselves. Obama's Sunshine Scam. [Scroll down] DuPont is expanding its facility in Circleville, Ohio, to manufacture solar energy materials, accepting $56 million in federal stimulus and state aid for the $175 million project. What does the taxpayer get for all that money? Seventy new jobs created, 444 existing jobs retained and 230 construction jobs. Add all the jobs up and divide and you get a per job cost of $235,000, $76,000 of which comes from taxpayers. Taxpayers are on the hook for about $114,000 for each stimulus-funded solar panel job at projects in Longmont, Colo., and Tipton, Ind. Then there is the $592,000-per-solar-job cost at the Emmet J. Bean Federal Center in Indianapolis, Ind. $450 Million in U.S. Stimulus Money Going To Chinese "Green" Company? It seems that some of that Obama-Reid-Pelosi stimulus money, which was supposed to be used to help create jobs here at home, may be helping to stimulate the Chinese economy instead. This would be on top of the help that the Chinese would get competitively if Obama's cap-and-trade proposals are ever enacted. As reported by MSNBC, top Democratic fundraisers, union supporters and lobbyists with links to the Obama White House are behind a proposed wind farm in Texas that stands to get $450 million in stimulus money. Obama's big chance. It's hard to see how the news could be any grimmer for Labor Day 2011: no net new jobs created in August, the first time since 1945 that's happened. ... Plus, the fairy tale of government-fostered "green jobs" just blew up. Back to the Environmental Issues Page Back to Supposedly good ideas that may not be good at all Jump to Environmentalists Oppose Every Practical Source of Energy Back to the Home page 
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