Global Warming Debate and Green Jobs

President Barack Obama has been hailing the historic action by the U.S. House of Representatives last Friday to pass its version of an American energy and environment bill.  The bill, still to be voted on by the Senate, would put a price on carbon emissions and foster numerous investment programs to boost the country's use of renewable fuels.  But as the analysis of the bill in its final form (still being conducted due to its length, 1,200 pages, and its lateness in being presented) is showing, the cap and trade aspect for controlling carbon emissions will have little impact on actual emissions in the U.S. until well into the 2020s and beyond.

The law would allow most of the emissions reduction target (17% of our 2005 emissions by 2020) to be met by using offsets.  That is polluters would be able to help finance pro-green projects elsewhere in the world such as planting trees and turning farming land back into meadows. 

A large part of the bill's initial thrust was to raise money for the government by requiring companies emitting carbon pollution to buy licenses for these emissions, but due to efforts to minimize the economic impact of raising utility bills and gasoline and heating oil bills, most of the licenses were allocated to industries based on negotiations between lobbyists and Congressionally staffers and representatives.  Other major concessions to special interest groups including removing from the purview of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the review of pollution caused by raising farm crops used in meeting environmental mandates (primarily corn for making ethanol).  That responsibility has been handed to the Agricultural Department, the prime lobbying organization for federal handouts to farmers.

So while the House was passing what was supposed to be an energy and environmental bill, it quickly morphed into a jobs bill, at least as envisioned by the House Democratic leadership.  As Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, urged her colleagues to pass the bill (it passed by a majority of seven with eight Republicans voting for it and one in four Democrats opposed) she called on them to "remember these four words, jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs."  The scary thing about Ms. Pelosi is she can't count - that was five words, but then again she didn't know that natural gas is a fossil fuel.  She falls into the category of many in California who said they didn't need more oil and gas; they had electricity.  Of course almost 25% of California's electricity comes from out of state.

The height of this comedy is the revelation that the Obama EPA is violating the rules of disclosure to muzzle a global warming skeptic within the agency.  Alan Carlin, a 35-year veteran of the agency and a senior analyst in the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics, along with colleague, published a 98-page analysis arguing the agency should take another look a the science behind man-made global warming, relying on peer-reviewed science questioning the data of global warming promoters and their climate computer models. 

After attacking the Bush administration for not supporting the popular theory about man-made global warming, the Obama EPA now has taken a defensive position trying to deflect and cover-up its actions against Mr. Carlin.  This time, however, because the EPA ruling is "policy," the agency must make public all the documents it used to support the rule and open the ruling up for public comment.  In addition, the courts have ruled that both "the evidence relied upon and the evidence discarded" needs to be presented.  So now that the EPA is on the defensive, its plan is to attack Mr. Carlin as a denier, equivalent to someone questioning the Holocaust or the Copernican theory.  The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman weighed in recently with a column about how global-warming deniers are morally bankrupt and going to cause everyone serious harm.  Interestingly, his column never mentioned Mr. Carlin or the EPA issue, but then again someone so left-wing and in the pocket of the Obama people wouldn't want to give any light to a debate over facts.

So now that Pres. Obama is trying to distance himself from the tax and economic cost impacts of the House bill, he has jumped on its potential for creating green jobs, something with heightened importance given the latest jobs report.  Unfortunately, recent studies of Europe's green movement suggest a less than impressive benefit from its ability to create green jobs.  

A study prepared for the European Commission recently found that if the 27-member states in the EC achieve their goal of getting 20% of its energy from renewables by 2020, there will be 2.8 million new jobs created.  But beause of the impact on power plant jobs and industry from high energy prices, 2.4 million jobs will be lost, leaving a net gain of 410,000 jobs.  That represents two-tenths of one percent of the 227 million workers in the EU.

Another report from The Economist shows that Colorado has quadrupled wind-energy production and is building the nation's third largest solar power plant.  The Colorado renewable energy sector is growing 30% a year, but "apart from temporary work for builders, the industry directly employs only 1,500-3,000 people, according to the University of Colorado."  Colorado's labor force has 2.7 million workers.

A one-sided energy and global warming debate is looking more likely to wreck havoc on the nation's economy with few benefits other than touchy-feely emotions.  Unfortunately, this was exactly what Pres. Obama campaigned on and got elected on.  Too bad no one listened to what he actually said during the campaign.