Just What Is a “Green” Job?

[Geee]

Front Page Magazine:

President Obama promised three years ago that by the end of the decade America would have 5 million green jobs. We have come up a bit short. Instead, at least 14 million potential workers are jobless.

But what is a “green” job any way? To find out, start with an exchange between Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Budget and Finance Committee, and the Department of Labor.

In a letter to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Sept. 23, 2010, Grassley wrote:

“Since February 2009, the Department has awarded approximately $490 million in Stimulus funding designed for ‘green job’ training. Yet the Department, according to its own documents, is still only ‘working to develop a definition for green sectors and jobs.’”
Earlier—in June 2010–Grassley had written Secretary Solis noting that he had opposed the American Recovery Act (the stimulus) because it was

“loaded with spending to satisfy special interests…However, it has come to my attention that the DOL (Department of Labor) is just now attempting to define what a ‘green job’ is….more than a year after the Recovery Act was signed into law and after millions of dollars in funding have already been distributed for green jobs….I would like to understand what criteria the DOL used to give out millions of taxpayer dollars prior to the definition being established.”

DOL Assistant Secretary Jane Oates responded to Grassley, saying that the stimulus act authorized DOL to award $740 million for worker training and placement, with $500 million for research, labor exchange and job training projects to “prepare workers for careers in energy efficiency and renewable energy.” Cited were inexact definitions of green jobs existing at the time, including a Department-supported research paper called “Greening of the World of Work.” It included Indian and Native American workforce development and a database of occupational requirements and worker attributes. In other words, no specific definition.

She also said the Bureau of Labor Statistics was researching other countries and states for their definitions of green jobs. This included, she said, identifying organizations that use environmentally-friendly production.

But the BLS definition “is solely for statistical purposes and is not applicable to the grants. The definition of green jobs that results from the BLS will not affect the funding of the grants.”

[RandyM]

"The definition of green jobs that results from the BLS will not affect the funding of the grants.”

 

 

Of course not.

[RandyM]

Bantering about the definition of a green job? Stupid stuff indeed, but Grassley and his ilk need to be asking bigger questions, such as "Why do we have a Department of Labor?"

[Evad]

A green job is a job for a company that sells a government propped up product for which there is no market.