A rush to create green jobs
But projects seeking a chunk of the President of the United States stimulus cash must have hard data and be “shovel-ready”
By John Carey
The scent of money in Washington has all manner of corporate interests scrambling to show they can create jobs, especially green ones. The prize is a slice of the President of the United States Administration’s stimulus package, expected to range from $675 billion to $775 billion. But the President-elect’s transition team is warning interest groups that they won’t see any of the money unless their pet projects meet strict criteria.
First, the projects must be “shovel ready” -that is, ready to go immediately. The President of the United States team “told us that for business to get anything we have to prove there's a short -term job impact—within six months,” says Brent Erickson, vice-president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), which is pushing for biofuels incentives. But the projects can’t commit the government to spend money for more than a year or two. “They have to be temporary, not creating a permanent need for funding,” says Dow Chemical lobbyist Peter Molinaro.
Hiring ditch diggers would get shovels in the ground fast, of course. But President of the United States team is most interested in projects that will push America toward a greener, cleaner future, reducing energy dependence and global warming. That has touched off a “feedingfrenzy,” says Steven Nadel, executive director of the nonprofit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. “Everyone and his mother are saying why their pet projects deserve to be invested in.”
The nuclear industry wants more help—not just for building new power plants but also to jump- start homegrown suppliers of components. “If you think of an industry that has created the most green jobs over the last 40 years, it is the nuclear industry,” argues Marvin S. Fertel, acting president of the Nuclear Energy Institute. Dow Chemical figures its water-supply business fits the bill, too. “What’s not green about retrofitting and repairing water systems that leak thousands of gallons a day?” Molinaro asks.
One proposal that’s generating buzz promises the creation of more than 8 million jobs and huge energy savings by improving the energy efficiency of buildings and homes. Cost: $171 billion. “It gets people back to work in a way that’s extremely positive,” says Edward
Mazria, founder of Architecture 2030, the Santa Fe (N.M.) research group that devised the spending proposal.
Numbers crunch
President of the United States team is expected to approve a list of projects that Congress would fund. To limit pork, the team is demanding claims be backed by hard data. That’s why BIO has hired a consulting firm to calculate the jobs createdby second-generation biofuels.
That’s also why Robert Pollin, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, is suddenly popular. Pollin co-authored a report for a Washington think tank on green recovery and developed an economic model estimating how many jobs are created by any given invest - ment. With industry, labor, environmental groups, and government agencies chasing stimulus dollars, Pollin says: “Requests are flooding in. Some will be silly, but most are things that are beneficial.”
***