Either the stimulus CAN or it CAN NOT create a decent return in green jobs, with wind or solar panels, in the United States right now. If it CAN, let's do it. If it CAN'T, let's not steal money allocated for the unemployed and give it to alternative energy. But it shouldn't be an either/or situation. We need to work together.
Right now, 84% of the stimulus grantsfor wind energy are going outside the country, as well as most of the jobs. Money that would otherwise be spent more directly on job creation is being spent to promote alternative energy...not a bad expenditure...but also not the purpose of the stimulus bill.
If these grants can't create jobs...then we're robbing from one important cause to give to another.
Alright. A little background.
I wrote a diary recentlyabout a 600 megawatt wind farm going up in Texas. 30% of the wind farm May Be funded by the Stim...Senator Schumer sent a letter to the President last Thursday to ask that the money not be given because it's not a good use of stimulus dollars...2000 jobs are to be created in China Vs. about 330 in the US.
Then our esteemed Kossack Mr. a Paris, wrote a diary about the stimulus and green technology. I'm going to boil down as fairly as I can. Basically..."The US has failed to create the industrial policy, green production capacity, and technology investment, so of course the green jobs are going elsewhere."
Let's make one thing absolutely clear...the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is about jobs.
On Feb. 13, 2009, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 at the urging of President Obama, who signed it into law four days later. A direct response to the economic crisis, the Recovery Act has three immediate goals:
* Create new jobs as well as save existing ones
* Spur economic activity and invest in long-term economic growth
* Foster unprecedented levels of accountability and transparency in government spending
Create new jobs. Spur economic activity.
This is not a Green Energy bill. The stimulus is a JOBS bill.
To the extent that the bill is designed to create Green Jobs, the operative part of that purpose is Jobs. Though lately it seems some are overly willing to jettison the Jobs part of the equation if it means furthering the Green part.
If the argument is, America doesn't have the production capacity, green technology, or the industrial policy to make the stimulus investments in wind power create jobs in the United States...then the question is, why are we taking money allocated for the unemployed and sending it to alternative wind energy initiatives?
If we are incapable of creating wind turbine jobs here in the US due to whatever shortfall, then the stimulus money should be spend on something else. Something that CAN, in fact, create jobs.
But that's not how it's supposed to work.
We're supposed to be working together toward a common goal.
If there's a blue-green alliance, then we don't say "oh well, tough luck, we're using the money for alternative energy, stop being so unrealistic, some day jobs will come" or "sorry, we can't make jobs with alternative energy, so we'll make jobs in something else, stop being so unrealistic."
No.
We're in this together. We make it work somehow.
Right now, 84% of the wind energy grants are going overseas...
But of the $1.05 billion in clean-energy grants handed out by the government since Sept. 1, 84 percent – a total of $849 million – has gone to foreign wind companies. Spanish utility company, Iberdrola S.A., alone has collected $545 million through its American subsidiary.
-- Article
Which is fine by me if those foreign companies are at least creating domestic jobs. But more often than not, that's not the case.
If US industrial policy isn't good enough right now, and if US manufacturing doesn't have the capacity for windmills right now, and if US technology isn't high enough for alternative energy right now to use US stimulus money toward its explicit purpose of creating jobs...
...if windmill production CANNOT produce jobs right now in the US for one reason or another...
...then we need to find another green industry that CAN create those jobs. Don't steal money intended to help the unemployed.
The point is not "why isn't the US creating windmills" here? The point is "why are we spending money allocated for the unemployed on this project if it doesn't have a good return on investment in US jobs?"
If I'm not mistaken, the upcoming climate bill would fund this stuff. Why are we using stim money for it if it's not giving us a good ROI in US jobs? People are going hungry, losing their homes, child poverty rates and homelessness are on the rise, suicide rates are increasing...spend that money on jobs. Green jobs if at all possible.
Frankly, I'd love if it could be wind.