Still More of Obama's Green-Jobs Fraud Exposed!

Posted 06/21/2012 06:49 PM ET

Industrial Policy: For a $9 billion
investment, the administration created just over 900 new, permanent
jobs. We could've had 20,000 jobs building a pipeline with not a dollar
of taxpayer money being wasted.

According to the report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory,
which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, Section 1503 of the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka the stimulus), the part that
covers green energy projects got some $9 billion in stimulus cash for
2009-11 and created a whopping 910 direct jobs — those involved in the
ongoing operation of the wind and solar projects that were funded. [In other words, these are Obama's own figures!]

Now, the report doesn't come right out and say this. You have to pick
through it and look past the "indirect" jobs said to have been created
by the manufacture and installation of the bird-chopping wind turbines
and water-cleansed solar panels.

The administration has a most curious way of describing what a green
job is, but if you count just the "direct" jobs, it cost taxpayers $9.8
million to create each of those long-term jobs.

Throw in the indirect jobs supporting the direct jobs estimate of
4,600 (we're confused too) and there are 5,510 total jobs (direct and
indirect). Starting with the $9 billion in grants, the result to
establish 5,510 jobs averages out to $1.63 million per job.

[In
other words, even if we accept the Obama administration's stretched
definition of a "green job," they still cost $1.63 million per job!
Here's an idea -- take the $9 billion and give 180,000 unemployed
families $50,000 each - it would have been a lot more cost-effective
than the "Green Job" scam and done a lot more for the economy! And think
of the food stamps, Obama-phones and unemployment funds we would have
saved!]

In an attempt to make things look not quite so wasteful, the report
in its summary claims that for the 2009-11 time frame, there were an
average 52,000-75,000 "direct and indirect jobs per year" created for
the construction, installation and related work on the wind and solar
projects.

But can these jobs be called "green," since they involve skills and
trades that can be used in other energy and manufacturing sectors? Can
the people who operate the food trucks that feed these construction
workers on their lunch break be said to have green jobs?

Yes, they can, according to John Galvin, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' acting commissioner. [It's so because we say it's so! says the Obama administration.]

Galvin
was recently grilled by GOP Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, who questioned whether
jobs were classified as "green" based on their characteristics or
whether they were so classified "for political purposes" and to make
President Obama's green energy program less of a failure.

"Does someone who sweeps the floor at a company that makes solar
panels — is that a green job?" Issa asked. "Yes," replied Galvin, who
also acknowledged that a bike-repair shop clerk, a hybrid-bus driver,
any school bus driver, used-record store employees and "the guy who puts
gas in a school bus" are all defined as green jobs.

Galvin even said a lobbyist working on environmental issues would be classified as having a green job.

Meanwhile, we have foregone creating real energy and manufacturing
jobs by blocking expanded oil drilling and delaying the construction of
the Keystone XL pipeline to deliver oil to American refineries from the
oil sands of Alberta, Canada.

Mark Ayers, past head of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades
Department, told the Huffington Post last November that "the Keystone
Pipeline represents the prospect for 20,000 immediate jobs, and as many
as 500,000 indirect jobs via a strong economic multiplier effect." And
not a dollar of taxpayer money would be involved. Tax dollars would be
generated, not consumed and wasted.

While campaigning four years ago, Sen. Barack Obama promised that
$150 billion in government spending on renewable energy projects would
create 5 million green-collar jobs over 10 years. Near the end of this
administration's first year in office, Vice President Joe Biden promised
722,000 green jobs would be generated by the stimulus.

To this end, avowed Marxist and wealth redistribution advocate Van
Jones was appointed as green jobs czar. The wealth redistribution part
has gone very well. But where, gentlemen, are the jobs?