Porta-Potties to Antiques: The Curious Journey of Obama’s ‘Green Jobs

[Geee]

PJMedia:

Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.), questioning a panel today about how the Labor Department counts “green jobs,” noted that he recently visited a huge wind farm and found that it employed just 12 people.

But the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing also revealed that the department has some interesting ideas about exactly what constitutes a green job.

“You’ll recall the DOL received $500 million in stimulus funds to train workers for so-called green skills,” said Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). “But an audit by the inspector general found the program to be an utter failure and represented a tremendous loss to the taxpayer.”

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And the Labor Department, he charged, is “using the guise of green jobs to justify ongoing funding of the president’s green agenda.”

What counts as green? Newspaper reporters who write on environmental issues. Think-tank wonks who study environmental policy. College professors teaching about the environment and lobbyists are counted.

“There’s a lot of green with lobbyists; none of it should be counted as an environmentally green job,” Issa quipped.

Even welders and sheet-metal workers, he noted, are suddenly colored green “after hundreds of years of being around as a profession.”

“There are 33 times as many so-called green jobs in the septic tank — and you can’t make these things up, guys — septic tank and portable toilet servicing industry as there are in solar energy and utility areas,” Issa said.

“Using these tactics to manipulate the number to mislead the American people is nothing short of embarrassing and a betrayal of the standards that President Obama established for his administration,” the chairman added.

Particularly telling was an exchange Issa had with John Galvin, acting commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about what does and does not count as one of the “3.1 million jobs constantly touted by this administration,” as noted by the chairman.

Issa first asked Galvin whether sweeping the floor in a green-energy facility counted as a green job.

When the commissioner hedged on his answer, Issa said he could tell Galvin was not “a delighted witness.”

“I asked you a question; please answer it,” Issa said.

“Yes,” Galvin answered.

Galvin also answered “yes” to a string of occupations listed by Issa that the administration considers green jobs.

[RandyM]

If you mow your own grass you are now a 'green' industry employee.

[pollyannaish]

My husband works for the unemployment division of Washington State. About 15 months into the Obama administration he came home and told me that they had been asked by our Dem Governor to report on how many green jobs were being filled. They were provided with a list. This list included combine and wheat truck drivers, loggers and agricultural pilots. In other words the exact people that environmentalists complain about.

 

In addition, the local community college was given huge government grants to train windmill technicians. They built a huge new "environmental studies center" with some of the money. The first year they had 25 graduates. There was exactly one position open in the entire country. Not kidding.

 

Weirdest thing ever, but glad to see they are finally looking into this. Crazy boondoggle at best. Outright fraud is more accurate.

[RandyM]

My husband works for the unemployment division of Washington State. About 15 months into the Obama administration he came home and told me that they had been asked by our Dem Governor to report on how many green jobs were being filled. They were provided with a list. This list included combine and wheat truck drivers, loggers and agricultural pilots. In other words the exact people that environmentalists complain about.

 

In addition, the local community college was given huge government grants to train windmill technicians. They built a huge new "environmental studies center" with some of the money. The first year they had 25 graduates. There was exactly one position open in the entire country. Not kidding.

 

Weirdest thing ever, but glad to see they are finally looking into this. Crazy boondoggle at best. Outright fraud is more accurate.

 

Well, at least your community has some very technically savvy hamburger flippers. /s