President-elect Obama's call for a stimulus package that would create or save 2.5 million American jobs provides an early opportunity for him to make good on promises to increase employment in environmentally friendly businesses.
The creation of so-called "green-collar" jobs was a popular theme during the presidential campaign, because it had the twofold virtue of weaning America from its dependence on fossil fuels while expanding payrolls in construction and other segments of the economy.
At various points in the campaign, Obama, his Republican opponent, John McCain, and his Democratic primary foe, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, each conjured visions of Great Society era workers hammering solar panels on to roofs and erecting wind farms.
Of course, that was before the full magnitude of the financial crisis became apparent.
With credit markets frozen and unemployment rising, the immediate emphasis has shifted to getting money in consumers' hands as quickly as possible. But if the incoming administration's overarching focus is for government to employ people to keep the economy alive, Obama and Congress are likely to keep the green jobs initiative alive. The question is how much money will they set aside.
Kevin Book, senior energy analyst for the investment bank Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., looks to the 2007 energy law for some answers. The measure outlined priority areas for job-creation, including retrofitting buildings to make them more energy-efficient, generating more electric power from renewable sources like wind and solar and making more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Book says Obama could package green jobs as a kind of tonic to the beleaguered auto industry, through a "cash for clunkers" program that would pay lower-income owners of gas guzzlers a premium of, say, 20 percent above-book value to retire their vehicles.
"It would get lower-income, long-distance drivers into new cars, get people into showrooms, get the auto parts sector selling components. Drivers who are now short of cash might even have some money left over that could flow into retail."
Another potential component of a stimulus package is a nationwide jobs program to build green schools or make existing schools more efficient. And there has been discussion in policy circles about allowing the Treasury Department to use some of the money in the $700 billion financial bailout program to encourage banks to make loans for wind and solar farms.
But Book notes Congress so far has been slow to provide the money to enact such initiatives. Lawmakers in 2007 authorized $125 million annually for grants to train workers in energy efficiency and renewable energy -- hardly enough to begin to meet Obama's benchmarks.
"It's still an equation with unknowns," Book said. "Getting to 2.5 million jobs is going to take a lot of spending and a lot of retraining."
-- Adriel Bettelheim
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