Part of the debate around proposition 23 will be about jobs. AB 32 is responsible for driving out of California companies that can’t comply or can’t afford these new regulations and higher energy costs. No worries “Green Job” will be our savior.
First you may be interested in what a “green job” is? I found out some amazing things from Jared Blumenfeld, Obama’s Regional Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. Before this gig he was the Director of San Francisco’s Environmental Department.
At a regional visit in June, he talked about ‘green jobs”. Workers that install insulation=green job. Bicycle repairman, I mean bicycle repairperson = green job. I’m not kidding, he didn’t say anything about shoe store owners or cleaning people who turn off the lights, but why not? If you pick up a day laborer in front of Home Depot you are helping illegals and the environment as long as they put in insulation. That is a liberal twofer. Apparently Covina Valley Schwinn was doing green jobs my entire life. Who knew?
But it gets better. Anyone involved at all gets counted as a “green job”. Lawyers, secretaries, shipping clerks, reserachers, environmental lobbyists, and even evil Wall Street venture capitalists. The people that make up the numbers count them all. This logic should be expanded. Maybe donut store clerks are public safety related jobs or Staples clerks are education related jobs. You can prove almost anything if you are willing to cook the books.
But the scam doesn’t end there. Many of these companies are California based. Which really means the wealthy venture capitalists, and some administrative staff are in California enjoying the weather and their sense of self-esteem through using tax subsidies to save the earth, but the jobs don’t come to California all that much.
San Jose’s Solexant is building a solar plant in Oregon, if they get enough tax money to do it. Amonix, in beautiful Seal Beach is doing their project in North Las Vegas. Say good bye to 278 jobs. MiaSole from Santa Clara is using about $100 million in tax credits to build a plant in Georgia. So a 1000 jobs go down there along with the devil. Well maybe the devil came here.
So when you hear ‘green jobs” realize many really aren’t or weren’t “green jobs" until they needed to find green jobs. And that the jobs being created are quasi-government jobs that require subsidies from you and me, but even California companies know California is a bad place to do business, unless you repair bicycles.
August 10th, 2010 at 12:00 am
The highest ranking green job is to be a Democratic legislator.
Don’t worry about Prop 23. A lot of work by good people went into it especially Assemblyman Dan Logue. Probably willl take 2 weeks after it passes to be overthrown by a green judge.
When the day comes that we finally pass a law shrinking all Government down to a convienient size where it can be easily drowned in a bath tub, a judge will overturn that law.
Thank you for this good article Mike and for highlighting the number of jobs that the green agenda kills.
God save us from our own Government and the cancer of liberalism from which it suffers with no remission in sight.