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CNS News...
$11
Billion
in Green Grants Produces Few Jobs, House Report Says
By Fred
Lucas
June 20,
2012
(CNSNews.com)
– An Obama administration green jobs grant program that spent $11
billion lacks
a verifiable job-counting system and likely created only a fraction of
the jobs
it claims, according to a staff report by the House Energy and Commerce
Committee.
While
Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the grants “created tens of thousands
of
jobs,” the government’s own National Renewal Energy Laboratory
estimates it
created 910 direct jobs.
The House
report criticized even those numbers, saying: “The job creation numbers
that
exist for Section 1603 are based on models, not actual data from
completed
projects. Neither Treasury nor DOE have turned over actual jobs data on
the
Section 1603 grants program to the committee.”
The program
was created through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,
better
known as the stimulus. Of the $22.6 billion allocated, just under half
has been
spent. The rest is set to be spent by the end of fiscal year 2017.
The grants
have gone to 34,140 projects, with $8.2 billion going for wind projects
and
another $2 billion going to solar projects. The remaining amount went
to
geothermal electricity, biomass, solar, thermal and small wind projects.
Despite
being part of the stimulus act, “job creation is not one of the
statutory
requirements for eligibility and thus it is not a factor in the
consideration
process. Because the 1603 program’s primary focus is on domestic
renewable
energy production, Treasury also does not report on the number of jobs
created
by the program,” said a March 30 letter to the committee from Richard
L. Gregg,
fiscal assistant to the secretary of Treasury.
During his
March 16 testimony to the committee, Chu praised the program.
“The
Section 1603 tax grant program has created tens of thousands of jobs in
industries such as wind and solar by providing up-front incentives to
thousands
of projects,” Chu said. “The Administration is seeking a one-year
extension of
this program.”
President
Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget proposal would spend another $4.7
billion from
2012 to 2022.
In a report
on the grant program published in April, the federal government’s
National
Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL) drew a distinction between direct
and
indirect jobs. Even the estimated 5,500 direct and indirect jobs fell
short of
Chu’s “tens of thousands” assertion.
“The annual
operation and maintenance (O&M) of these PV [solar
photovoltaic] and wind
systems are estimated to support between 5,100 and 5,500 direct and
indirect
jobs per year on an ongoing basis over the 20- to 30-year estimated
life of the
systems,” the NREL report said. “Similar to the construction phase, the
number
of jobs directly supporting the O&M of the systems is
significantly less
than the number of jobs supporting manufacturing and associated supply
chains
(910 and 4,200–4,600 jobs per year, respectively).”
The report
goes on to say, “These indirect jobs account for approximately
4,200–4,600 jobs
per year for the lifetime of the systems. Onsite jobs directly
supporting the
service and maintenance of systems (as well as the associated
management and
administration) account for approximately 910 jobs annually for the
lifetime of
the systems.”
Before the
stimulus, most renewable energy projects were promoted through tax
incentives.
The Congressional Research Service reported that the 1603 program
“results in
revenue losses that are greater than the revenue associated with the
previously
available tax incentives.” The Joint Committee on Taxation projected
“10-year
revenue losses resulting from the shift from tax credits to grant
payments.”
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