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"Obama's Green Jobs Failures"

Peter Suderman (Reason.com) takes a look at Investor's Business Daily's examination of "President Obama's promise to create five million "green jobs" over the next decade. So far, quite a lot of stimulus money has been spent attempting to encourage enviro-work. But there hasn't been a lot of progress, and in a number of cases, the money appears to have been blown on projects that are clearly wasteful or doomed to failure."

Some lowlights:

• "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."
• Evergreen Solar Inc is a "Massachusetts company that the White House once said 'is hoping to hire 90 to 100 people' thanks to stimulus money has $485.6 million in debt. Evergreen closed a factory in March, reports the Boston Herald, and cut 800 jobs. A Michigan plant is to be shut down, as well, causing the loss of even more jobs."
• "Green Vehicles of Salinas, Calif., which has burned through more than $500,000 in money 'invested' by the city, folded last month without having produced anything of significance. The company promised it would employ about 70 and pay back Salinas taxpayers with $700,000 a year in city taxes."
• In Seattle, "a $20 million federal grant for home weatherization has, according to KOMO news, retrofitted only three houses and created 14 jobs in more than a year."

(Read the whole thing here.)

Suderman adds, "As the job-creation rhetorical wars reach threat level five in Washington, it's worth remembering that the problem with jobs initiatives, green and otherwise, is that creating sustainable, productive jobs—the kind of employment that lasts and adds to the nation's productivity—is a hard thing to do. And there's no reason to think government bureaucrats, torn by a mob of competing political interests, are going to be somehow better at it than private sector operators. If creating productive employment were straightforward, wouldn't the private sector already be doing it? After all, you don't see most companies turning down opportunities to profit. Which is one of the many reasons why these fantasy jobs initiatives dreamed up in Washington frequently don't hit near the jobs numbers they promise, and why, when it comes to stimulus spending, the administration ends up leaning on totally unverifiable job-creation estimates to justify its spending. Lots more from Reason on green jobs here, here, and here. "

(h/t: Peter Suderman/Reason.com)

Big green lies...

So much for all those "green" jobs that were going to save California...

Last month, my colleagues on the John Batchelor Show and I discussed how China - through subsidies and economic espionage - has destroyed the solar panel market for much of the rest of the world...especially here in California.

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) meets workers at Solyndra's Fremont-based facilities. Boxer touted her support of green jobs, like the ones being lost at Solyndra, as key to fixing what ails California...

Like most fantasies, this one is coming to a conclusion. It can now be said that we are seeing the beginning of the industry's end here in the Golden State. The worst part is that the federal government, including Sen. Barbara Boxer (CA-D) - who ran on this very issue as a key pillar in her recent campaign - did know/should have known this was happening.

China's now-burgeoning solar panel manufacturing industry benefits from years of economic espionage, illegal subsidies and no environmental regulations to speak of...

"Despite a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government, Solyndra, a maker of solar panels in the southeast San Francisco Bay Area city of Fremont, will close one of its manufacturing plants, lay off 40 permanent and 150 contract workers, delay expansion plans of a new plant largely financed with the government-guaranteed loan and scale back production capacity more than 50 percent. Despite the hype and tax money, Solyndra seems unable to compete with Chinese manufacturers, whose prices are lower. This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry’s supposed shining lights." – Editorial, The Orange County Register, November 11, 2010.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (center) helps break ground for the now endangered Solyndra solar panel manufacturing facility... (photo: Solyndra)

Not only is this news a hit on the industry and the over-hyped notion that green jobs would pull California out of the economic tailspin that it's now it, but it also was a hit on the president's much-touted Stimulus program.

President Barack Obama at Solyndra's Bay Area facility...

"...The US Government's $535 million deal is is the first loan of its type using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and also the first of its type from the US Department of Energy (DOE) since 1980," according to a report at Treehugger.com.

Just great! Not one but two taxpayer-financed fantasies gone bust...