And while proponents of this legislation tout the “minimal costs” such a policy would have on household budgets, it’s important to note that the EPA has a history of systematically underestimating the costs of cap-and-trade legislation. Today’s analysis is no different.

Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research issued this statement on the economic analysis released today on the American Power Act:

“The American people overwhelming oppose an increase in the gas tax – yet, it’s included in this legislation. Cap-and-trade, which will cause electricity prices to “necessarily skyrocket,” has also been soundly rejected by the American people – yet, it is also included in this proposal. We can argue about how high the costs of this legislation will be, but no one denies that the consumer will end up with less money in their pockets after this legislation is signed into law.

“Bottom line: the more expensive it is to do business in this country, the less productive and competitive our economy will be. Mandating the use of expensive energy and artificially increasing the price of coal, oil and natural gas will only further harm our already struggling economy. It is clear that the American Power Act will do just that, so one has to ask: What are policymakers and Wall Street trying to accomplish with this legislation?”

Note: EPA’s analysis is not a cost-benefit analysis. According to EPA models, the global temperature savings of the Kerry-Lieberman bill is astoundingly small—0.043°C (0.077°F) by 2050 and 0.111°C (0.200°F) by 2100. In other words, by century’s end, reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 83% will only result in global temperatures being one-fifth of one degree Fahrenheit less than they would otherwise be. That is a scientifically meaningless reduction.

Washington, DC – With President Obama set to announce tougher fuel economy standards by way of executive order this morning, the Institute for Energy Research has compiled a list of simple, straight forward questions for the President to answer on this topic.

1. Mr. President, according to your own Environmental Protection Agency, these standards will have minimal effect on the global temperatures. When EPA imposed the last round of fuel economy mandates on light duty vehicles, the benefits were explained: “Global mean temperature is estimated to be reduced by 0.006 to 0.015 °C by 2100…” and “sea-level rise is projected to be reduced by approximately 0.06-0.14cm by 2100.” Do you care to elaborate on this? Is it your belief that loss of safety and security to American families is worth this speculative and tiny benefit? (75 Federal Register, pg. 25495)
2. Mr. President, your security detail dictates the vehicles you and your family travel in, and we are glad they have chosen the safest vehicles available. But shouldn’t the American people have that same choice for their families, in that they are able to purchase a vehicle that best suits their needs and the demands of their jobs and personal lives without added government costs or intrusions?
3. Mr. President, according to the EPA, the last round of fuel economy mandates will add at least an additional $1,000 to the cost of each vehicle. Why would the government mandate that the citizens of this country purchase more expensive vehicles? Is this about “changing consumer behavior?” Because we sure know that it will have little-to-no impact on the climate change (see question 1 above). (New York Times, 5.20.2010)
4. Mr. President, research show us that smaller, lighter vehicles are not as safe as larger, heavier vehicles. That’s pretty much commonsense.  With these new standards, car manufacturers will be forced to make vehicles lighter and smaller, to meet government standards. A 2002 study from the National Research Council found that the federal government’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy mandate contributed to 2,000 deaths per year. If this is the tradeoff, is it truly worth it? (Wall Street Journal, 4.17.2009)
5. Mr. President, you stated in your opening remarks that this executive order will reduce our dependence and consumption of oil. You have also stated on occasion of the need to transition to electric and hybrid automobiles – even though they are not economically viable and there is no demand in the market for them. That aside, when China controls 97 percent of the world’s rare earth mineral supply – which are required for hybrid and electric vehicles – are we simply trading one dependence, for another, potentially more serious dependence? (Institute for Energy Research, 2.17.2010)

More from IER on fuel economy standards:

• Analysis: EPA’s new fuel economy mandates—more job killing regulation
• Analysis: Rare Earth Elements are Vulnerable to Supply Disruptions When China Controls 97% of the World’s Production

Washington, DC – Leading up to today’s (April 28, 2010) House Energy and Environment subcommittee hearing entitled “Clean Energy Polices That Reduce Our Dependence on Oil,” the panel’s staff issued a memorandum outlining the subject matter to be covered at the hearing. The non-partisan Institute for Energy Research (IER) issued the following “fact check” on this briefing memo.

E&C Claim: The U.S. contains only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves.

FACT: The U.S. contains far more than 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Today, the U.S. has 2 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves. However, the U.S. has far more than only 2 percent of the world’s oil. This factually inaccurate talking point is often used by opponents of domestic energy production. While the proved conventional oil reserves of the U.S. in 2009 were 19.1 billion barrels, this number is misleading on several fronts. In short, “proved reserves” are indeed proven, we know they are there, and that they are economically recoverable.

For the better part of three decades, misguided U.S. government policies have kept hydrocarbons on 97 percent of offshore water and 94 percent of taxpayer-owned lands unleased. What is exactly beneath these taxpayer-owned waters and lands remains anyone’s guess. But to use the “2 percent” talking point to further an anti-oil agenda is simply disingenuous. For example, ANWR’s 10.4 billion barrels of estimated economically recoverable oil would raise U.S. reserves by over 50 percent.  And according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), “undiscovered technically recoverable oil in the United States is 145.5 billion barrels” (CRS report number R40872, page 2). The U.S. Energy Department also estimates that the U.S. has 1.38 trillion barrels of potentially recoverable shale oil (CRS report number R40872, page 10).

E&C Claim: The U.S. has increasingly relied on imports, which supplied 57 percent of U.S. oil demand in 2008.

FACT: It is true, that since 1994 the U.S. has imported more crude oil than it has produced. But this dependence is in large part due to policy decisions made over the course of nearly four decades – by both Republican and Democratic administrations and Congresses. While the U.S. is oil dependent, it should be noted that our two largest suppliers of crude oil, after the U.S., are also our closest North American neighbors: Canada and Mexico. In fact, in 2008 these strategic trading partners supplied the U.S. with 716 million and 434 million barrels of North American oil, respectively.

E&C Claim: Global oil demand is projected to grow 23 percent to 24 percent by 2030. To meet these projections, two-thirds of the world’s oil production in 2030 will have to come from fields that have not yet been developed or found – roughly the equivalent of locating and developing six new Saudi Arabia.

FACT: With much of the developing world entering the energy business, global energy consumption will undoubtedly increase. However, these numbers need to be examined in the appropriate context. In 1940, according to the Energy Department, the U.S. had proven oil reserves of 19 billion barrels. In 2008, our proven reserves stood at 19.1 billion barrels. So, did the U.S. only use 100 million barrels of domestic oil in nearly seventy years? Of course not. Through the never-ending advancement in technologies, we discovered more oil, and continue to do so today. Since 1971, global oil reserves have grown by more than a factor of 2.5, while global oil demand has grown by a factor of 1.7. Factor in oil shale, and the overall dynamics shift considerably. In fact, according to the Energy Department’s Office of Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale, approximately 1.38 trillion barrels of shale oil are potentially recoverable in the U.S. (CRS report number R40872, page 10). Which, by the way, is 5.2 times the amount of Saudi Arabia’s proven reserves.

E&C Claim: On March 27, 2007, an unfounded rumor of an attack on a U.S. warship by Iran sent oil prices climbing $5 (to 68.91/barrel) in about 7 minutes.

FACT: According to the Wall Street Journal, on March 26, 2007, crude oil traded on the NYMEX at $68.22 per barrel. However, on March 27, oil increased to $68.70 a barrel and then fell to $68.50 on March 28. There is no doubt intraday trading can be volatile, including short-term price shocks due to erroneous reports. But as the data shows, these short-term intraday shocks are quickly corrected by market forces. On the other hand, government policy can have an immediate impact on the price of crude oil. We witnessed this on July 14, 2008 and September 23, 2008, when President Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore exploration, and the Democratic-controlled Congress allowed its ban to expire. Prices dropped on the mere anticipation that additional oil reserves could come on-line at some point in the future.

E&C Claim: Greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles endanger human health and welfare.

FACT: This is a claim often made by EPA officials and proponents of increasing the cost of transportation fuels. That said, according to the EPA’s own analysis, the new fuel economy mandate will cause global mean temperature to “be reduced by 0.006 to 0.015 °C by 2100” and “sea-level rise is projected to be reduced by approximately 0.06-0.14cm by 2100” (EPA’s final rule, page 355). To put that reduction in sea level rise in context, 0.14 cm is less than the width of 4 coarse human hairs. If carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles were as harmful as EPA claims, it stands to reason that their regulations would result in a detectable impact rather than something undetectable in the real world like 0.015 °C over the next 90 years.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 28, 2010
CONTACT:
Patrick Creighton: 202.621.2947
Laura Henderson: 202.621.2951

“This regulation will increase the cost of doing business in America, period. And when you increase the cost of doing business, you’re left with several possible outcomes: increased costs to consumers, job losses, companies moving offshore to business friendly countries—companies may even be forced to close up shop all together. None of these outcomes put folks back to work or aid in our economic recovery.

“Today’s announcement is pretty cut and dry, the EPA has put America on notice that in less than one year, they will begin to regulate the way we use energy. This process will place an added financial burden on nearly one million buildings and stationary sources that emit carbon – including power plants, nursing homes, schools and even drycleaners. Those added financial costs will undoubtedly be passed along to the consumer in the form of higher electricity bills, increased prices for goods and services and yes, even the possibility of a new tax on your dry cleaning.

“Make no mistake; this is the administration’s attempt to circumvent the legislative process and the will of the American people.”

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
March 29, 2010
CONTACT:
Patrick Creighton: 202.621.2947
Laura Henderson: 202.621.2951

The Good News—the Air is Getting Cleaner

The report can be summed up with this graphic from EPA:

GDP, vehicle miles traveled, population, and energy consumption have all increased since 1990. But despite the fact that more people are using more energy to produce more goods and services, air pollution emissions have decreased.

EPA reports that air quality has improved for the six main air pollutants:

Since 1990, nationwide air quality has improved significantly for the six common air pollutants. These six pollutants are ground-level ozone, particle pollution (PM2.5 and PM10), lead, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and sulfur dioxide (SO2). Nationally, air pollution was lower in 2008 than in 1990 for:

• 8-hour ozone, by 14 percent
• annual PM2.5 (since 2000), by 19 percent
• PM10 , by 31 percent
• Lead, by 78 percent
• NO2 , by 35 percent
• 8-hour CO, by 68 percent
• annual SO2 , by 59 percent

The below graphic, from EPA’s website, (but not in the actual air trends report) shows air quality trends since 1970. These trends are even more dramatic than the 1990 to 2008 numbers.

The Bad News: the Press Does Not Seem Interested in Telling the American People Our Air Quality has Dramatically Increased

This is good news that air quality continues to improve and even more so because the American people do not know it. According to a 2004 poll from the Foundation for Clean Air Progress, only 29 percent of people thought that “America’s air quality is better than . . . it was in 1970.”

One reason that the American people do not know this is because the press does not report on it.  So far not one major newspaper has written a story about the good news in this air trends report—there’s nothing from the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, or any of the other major news outlets. The only story we could find is from E&E News (a subscription-based environment and energy news service) and even then it was the 12^th story in their afternoon publication.

It’s tough for the American people to lean to the truth about air quality when the media does not report the good news.

Our Air is Getting Cleaner

Today we can breathe easier knowing that our air is much cleaner than in the past. Even though the media is not reporting this good news to the American people, our air quality has substantially improved and will continue to improve. The data shows the truth.

“What was offered today was nothing more than more of the same. Bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship may make for good headlines, but the proposal outlined today is a tripartisan bad idea for the American people – paving the way for a job-killing cap-and-trade system that will increase the price of energy across the board.

“The Senators claim that their approach is a ‘market-based’ one. More government mandates, regulations and huge amounts of taxpayer subsidies to unreliable, expensive energy forms – a key component of their plan – will not put our nation on a path toward energy and economic security and is the furthest thing from ‘market-based’. This is a ‘government-mandated’ approach that creates a ‘market’ out of thin air.

“As for the nominal attempts to expand domestic offshore energy exploration, nothing has changed. Commonsense action from the Obama Administration – not Congress – is what now stands between the American people and the vast job-creating energy resources on taxpayer owned lands. The Senators should spend their time urging the Obama Administration to stop its administrative embargo against America’s domestic energy supplies.

“Unfortunately, American families facing economic hardships are strikingly absent from this debate. And they realize that this proposal – like others being considered by Congress and by the EPA – will increase their energy bills, keep more American energy off-limits and cost even more jobs.”

Note: Click here to read the Senator’s framework.

For additional information, please contact Patrick Creighton, 202-621-2947, or Laura Henderson, 202-621-2951.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 4 , 2009
CONTACT:
Laura Henderson
202.621.2951
Patrick Creighton
202.621.2947

Renewable Electricity Mandate: Pay More For Less

WASHINGTON—In advance of a Senate Energy Committee hearing on the renewable electricity mandate (REM), the Institute for Energy Research (IER) released the following fact sheet:

A National REM Would Increase the Cost of Electricity:

• Wind and solar electricity are significantly more expensive than efficient and reliable traditional electricity sources.
• Energy Information Administration (EIA) projections state that these sources will also be significantly more expensive than coal in 2016.

REMs are already Hurting Americans, Making it Harder for Small Businesses to Compete:

• 34 states already have renewable electricity standards
• Residential electricity rates are 38 percent higher and industrial rates are 50 percent higher in states with binding renewable mandates

The Electricity Sources Mandated are Not Efficient or Dependable:

• Wind generated 1.3 percent, geothermal 0.4 percent, biomass 1.3 percent, and solar less than 0.03 percent of the electricity Americans used last year.
• Energy Secretary Stephen Chu told the New York Times that solar technology would have to get five times better to be competitive in today’s market.

Americans will Pay for a National REM Twice: First as Taxpayers, then as Consumers:

• The Spanish government attempted to mandate and subsidize renewable electricity.
• Spain spent $753,778 of taxpayer dollars to create each green job.
• Spain gave $1,319,783 in subsidies to create wind industry jobs.

NOTE: A recent poll found that 58 percent of Americans said they were not willing to pay a penny more than they currently pay for electricity to combat climate change; 78 percent said that a $50 increase would cause financial ‘hardship.’

The Institute for Energy Research (IER) is a not-for-profit organization that conducts intensive research and analysis on the functions, operations, and government regulation of global energy markets. IER maintains that freely-functioning energy markets provide the most efficient and effective solutions to today’s global energy and environmental challenges and, as such, are critical to the well-being of individuals and society.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 19, 2009
CONTACT:
Laura Henderson 202.621.2951

Obama Motors: Costly, Bureaucratic, and Pointless

WASHINGTON—In response to President Obama’s newly introduced mile-per-gallon fuel mandate, Institute for Energy Research President Thomas J. Pyle issued the following statement:

“It is overwhelming to consider the ways this new mandate will harm the American economy. This stealth energy tax will significantly increase the cost of every single new car on the market. Early reports suggest that consumers can expect to pay between $1,000 and $3,000 more for small cars and up to $5,000 more for large cars. And the notion that these cost increases will pay for themselves would be charming, but for the many Americans who will no longer be able to afford a new car.

“The mandate demonstrates just how seriously the feds are taking their new role as car company chief: The government isn’t just going to make decisions about how best to run their operations. They’re also going to limit your choice of automobile and force you to pay more in the process—that is, those who can still afford a new car.

“Our crippled and crumbling auto industry will now be forced to revamp every car it puts on the market to comply with the government’s latest edict. Right now, only three models even come close to meeting the President’s latest mandate. Car companies should be free to focus on building cars Americans want to drive, not carrying out government policy.

“Most alarmingly, this plan, offered in the name of reducing carbon emissions, will not work. Even if every single car and truck in the U.S. met the new fuel economy mandate—a stretch, given that this mandate will only affect new cars—the U.S. would decrease carbon emissions by five percent. Carbon dioxide increases from China and the developing world would swallow that five percent by the end of September—that means Americans’ sacrifices, which they will be forced to pay for years to come—will be moot in four short months.

“Is now, when Americans are knee-deep in the biggest recession in generations, really the time to take on a significant new economic burden that will yield negligible results? Do we really want the future of our nation to be one in which the government tells you what kind of car you can buy and then makes you pay more for it? In our experience, the American people say no.”

NOTE: Earlier this year, when the EPA requested public comments regarding the State of California’s request to set its own fuel economy mandate, IER urged Americans to express their disapproval of the costly measure. That campaign spurred over 10,000 citizens to voice their concerns regarding fuel economy standards for California alone, unlike this measure, which will affect the entire nation.

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The Institute for Energy Research (IER) is a not-for-profit organization that conducts intensive research and analysis on the functions, operations, and government regulation of global energy markets. IER maintains that freely-functioning energy markets provide the most efficient and effective solutions to today’s global energy and environmental challenges and, as such, are critical to the well-being of individuals and society.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 26, 2009
CONTACT:
Brian Kennedy (202) 346-8826
Chris Tucker (202) 346-8825

IER: President’s Adoption of California Model on Energy Means Higher Costs, Fewer Jobs for Rest of America

Washington, DC – Institute for Energy Research (IER) president Thomas J. Pyle today issued the following statement on President Obama’s decision to allow carbon regulators in California to saddle the American auto industry with massive new cost and compliance burdens likely to be paid for by taxpayers and energy consumers across the country:

“At a time when taxpayers have already been asked to send billions of dollars to Detroit to save the American auto industry, the president’s decision to impose what amounts to a $1,050 tax on all new cars may render that investment moot. Unfortunately, for as high a price as Americans will now pay to comply with California’s carbon mandates, there is very little evidence that carbon emissions will actually go down as a result  – and even less to suggest our climate will be affected. In fact, if all cars and trucks in the United States were forced to adopt this standard, the emissions increases from the rest of the world would more than replace the reductions envisioned by this plan. By June. Of this year.

“Few states depend more on others for energy than California. Few states ask its citizens to pay more for their electricity. Today’s announcement ensures that working-class Californians will also have a harder time affording cars in the future. This is the California model on energy – a policy that’s led to the hemorrhaging of jobs and the near-bankruptcy of the state.  If this is a policy President Obama wants our nation to follow, we should prepare ourselves now for similar results.”

NOTE: Today, President Obama instructed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to review the December 2007 denial of California’s request to create its own emissions standards for automobiles. The California Air Resources Board has estimated that the mandate will add at least $1,050 to the cost of each car and will cause the auto industry to slip further behind the technological curve as it struggles to adjust to California’s whims rather than needed efforts to retool to meet the imperatives of customer choice.

More from IER on the California energy model:

• Comment Submission: IER Encourages California Air Resources Board to Consider Implications of AB 32

• Press Release: AB 32 is Bad Medicine for California’s Struggling Economy

• IER Study: Green Jobs: Fact or Fiction?

The Institute for Energy Research (IER) is a not-for-profit organization that conducts intensive research and analysis on the functions, operations, and government regulation of global energy markets. IER maintains that freely-functioning energy markets provide the most efficient and effective solutions to today’s global energy and environmental challenges and, as such, are critical to the well-being of individuals and society.

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www.InstituteforEnergyResearch.org

GREEN JOBS: Fact or Fiction?

An Assessment of the Literature

January 2009

By Robert Michaels and Robert P. Murphy

Download as PDF

Introduction and Executive Summary
I. Green Recovery, Center for American Progress
II. Job Opportunities for the Green Economy, Political Economy Research Institute
III. Current and Potential Green Jobs in the U.S. Economy, Global Insight
IV. Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, American Solar Energy Society

Introduction and Executive Summary

Data compiled and recently released by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) indicates that not only is the U.S. economy currently in recession, it has been for more than an entire year (since December 2007). What started as a financial crisis on Wall Street quickly evolved into a much deeper economic crisis on Main Street, with unemployment now at a 16-year high. What’s worse, the recovery seems elusive, and a prolonged recession cannot be ruled out. Keynesian economics is once more fashionable in the corridors of power in Washington, with plans taking shape for a massive infrastructure program (much of it expected to be “green”) to get the economy moving again.

In this environment, some have seized upon the “Green Economy” as a cure for both the nation’s current economic ills, and as a way to address the issues of global warming and energy security. According to this view, government at all levels can use fiscal and regulatory measures to spur massive new investments in renewable energies and energy efficiency, which will create millions of new “green jobs.” Proponents claim that such programs will not only rescue the economy from recession, but will also put the country on track to a sustainable, low-carbon energy future. The new Administration and the incoming 111th Congress are in apparent agreement with this overall strategy, differing perhaps only in the details.

Unfortunately, it is highly questionable whether a government campaign to spur “green jobs” would have net economic benefits. Indeed, the distortionary impacts of government intrusion into energy markets could prematurely force business to abandon current production technologies for more expensive ones. Furthermore, there would likely be negative economic consequences from forcing higher-cost alternative energy sources upon the economy. These factors would likely increase consumer energy costs and the costs of a wide array of energy-intensive goods, slow GDP growth and ironically may yield no net job gains. More likely, they would result in net job losses.

In the present article we critically examine four recent studies on the alleged benefits of government programs to foster green job creation: the Center for American Progress’ (CAP) Green Recovery: A Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy [i], the Political Economy Research Institute’s (PERI) Job Opportunities for the Green Economy: A State-by-State Picture of Occupations that Gain From Green Investments [ii], the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Current and Potential Green Jobs in the U.S. Economy [iii], and finally the American Solar Energy Society’s (ASES) Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency: Economic Drivers for the 21st Century [iv]. Although each report is unique, a common characteristic is that they all rest on incomplete economic analysis, and consequently greatly overstate the net benefits of their policy recommendations. Below we summarize these general problems, while in subsequent sections we analyze each report in turn.

Mistaking a labor-intensive energy sector as the goal, rather than efficient energy provision.

Energy is the lifeblood of the economy. The primary objective of the energy sector is to supply cost-effective energy to the broader economy, allowing it to grow and increase the standard of living of its citizens. Artificially pumping up employment in the energy sector per se—and thereby driving down productivity, while driving up costs to the broader economy—is counterproductive to overall net job creation and economic growth. It is a sign of increased efficiency if more energy can be produced and delivered with fewer workers, because this expands the overall output potential of the economy. Yet the green jobs studies that we analyze in this report reach the opposite conclusion, and favor energy sources that require more workers to yield a given amount of energy. By analogy, the number of workers in the U.S. devoted to agriculture has steadily declined over the last century, and this is a healthy sign of progress in the U.S. economy. Government efforts to reverse the trend, and force more workers back into agriculture, would not “create jobs” in the long-run, but would simply raise food prices and shrink other sectors.

Counting job creation but ignoring job destruction.

Even if job creation per se is the goal, the studies fail to properly account for the job destruction that their recommendations would entail. For example, the Center for American Progress (CAP) study recommends a $100 billion expenditure to be financed through the sale of carbon allowances under a cap-and-trade program. CAP estimates that this “fiscal stimulus” will result in the creation of two million jobs [v]. Yet the CAP methodology treats the $100 billion as manna from heaven; it does not consider the direct and indirect adverse effects (including job destruction) of imposing higher costs on a wide array of energy-intensive industries and thereby raising prices for consumers.

Double counting of jobs and overly simplistic treatment of the labor market.

The green studies critiqued in this report implicitly assume that there is a limitless pool of idle labor which can fill the new “green” slots created by government spending. Yet to the extent that some of the new green jobs are filled by workers who were previously employed, estimates of job creation are overstated, perhaps significantly so. In addition, the studies do not account for the rise in worker productivity over time. Thus their long-range forecasts of total jobs created by green programs are inflated, even on their own terms.

To its credit, CAP alludes to potential “inflationary labor shortages from job creation” [vi] due to its proposed program, but dismisses the concern as irrelevant for an economy in recession. The thinking is that the workers going into the new green jobs will simply reduce the unemployment rate, rather than siphoning talented people away from other industries. The CAP analysis ignores the fact that other industries, not favored by the green subsidies or mandates, would have been able to draw on the pool of unemployed workers as the economy recovers. With fewer workers seeking jobs, job creation in “non-green” sectors will be lower than it otherwise would have been. Moreover, some of the infrastructure plans will require a long time to implement and then reach completion. Their implementation over time could contribute to “inflationary labor shortages” once the current recession has passed.

Ignoring the role of the private sector.

Nowhere in CAP or the other three studies is there a discussion of the role of the private sector in their proposed green jobs programs. No consideration appears to have been given to the fact that government cannot direct the labor and capital markets more efficiently than market wage and interest rates. In fact, history is replete with evidence that government lacks this ability. The syn-fuels program of the late 1970s is a classic example of labor and capital being pulled, at government’s direction, into lower-value uses than the industries into which market forces would have channeled them. The studies also omit any discussion of cutting the marginal tax rates on labor and capital to increase incentives to work and invest. Arguably this is the most effective, and only sustainable way to revive economic growth.

How much government support of “green” markets is enough? Are the programs sustainable?

The studies propose potentially massive government intervention in energy markets, both with respect to electricity generation and transportation fuels. It is important to consider the current levels of subsidies before considering further market intervention in the energy markets. In FY 2007, total federal energy subsidies were estimated by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (DOE EIA) [vii] at $16.6 billion, spread across more than a dozen energy sources as seen in the figures at the right and below.

On an absolute dollar basis, renewables receive over twice the level of subsidies compared with conventional energy sources. And on a dollar per Btu or MWh basis, the level of subsidy of renewable energy is orders of magnitude (more than 100 times) greater than levels for conventional energy.

Government picking of winners and losers, a classic example of unsound energy policy.

All sources of commercially viable energy have a role in supplying the energy required by U.S. consumers and the nation’s economy. In fact, at some point in the future—especially if oil prices return to their previous levels—it may be efficient for the United States to obtain a significantly larger share of its electricity and transportation needs from renewable energy sources. However, the programs proposed in the studies reviewed in this paper would require, at some level, government officials to make choices as to which technology areas to further support/subsidize (solar, wind, ethanol, etc.). It is very unlikely that government-directed programs picking winners and losers would yield a more efficient energy mix than what would be determined in the market absent massive government intervention. On what basis will government officials make the decisions as to what technologies to support, and given the existing levels of subsidies, would the additional levels of support be sustainable in the future?

Similar reasoning applies to assessments of efficiency measures that “pay for themselves.” If adding new insulation, or installing a solar panel, really would save more money than the initial cost (including interest), then it is unclear why governments need to further subsidize the improvements. Presumably private business and households do not need to be aided in the process of furthering their self interest.

Assuming that potential benefits from new technologies will only occur through government programs.

Another major issue with the studies is to conflate the benefits of new technologies and energy efficiency, with the benefits of government programs in these areas. For example, the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) report estimates that by 2030, the state of Ohio could see two million jobs related to energy efficiency [viii]. Such figures lead it to conclude that “if we fail to invest in RE&EE [renewable energy and energy efficiency], the United States runs the risk of losing ground to international RE&EE programs and industries.” [ix] But if the “we” refers to taxpayers, rather than private investors, the ASES argument is unsound. After all, many industries will provide millions of jobs for Ohio in the year 2030, and this happy outcome doesn’t require government funding or oversight.

Having summarized some of the major shortcomings common to the four studies, we now proceed to an analysis of each

I. Green Recovery, by Pollin et al., Center for American Progress (CAP)

Both of Pollin’s papers, Center for American Progress and Political Economy Research Institute (CAP and PERI), are built around a policy that will allocate $100 billion from the federal government among six “green economy” strategies: retrofits to buildings, expansion of mass transit, building a “smart” electric grid that allows better management of production and consumption, expanding wind power, expanding solar power, and promoting research in “next generation” biofuels [x]. In this section we discuss the CAP study, while in Section II we address the PERI study.

A. No Free Lunch on Emission Allowances: Study Fails to Incorporate the Costs of the Proposed Program

CAP sees a need for only two annual deficit payouts of $100 billion. It expects that in two years the federal government will be auctioning permits required to emit greenhouse gases, and that the program will produce $75 to $200 billion in annual revenue [xi]. If so, as the reasoning goes, the government can invest it in the green program with no adverse effects as business will pay for the permits. In reality the requirement to purchase the permits amounts to a new tax that must be borne by someone. Either output prices will rise or the profits that can be reinvested in businesses will fall. Either way, some of the demand for the economy’s output will vanish. The CAP study touts the benefits of a “multiplier,” whereby federal spending of $100 billion leads to spillover benefits, increasing the total economic expansion beyond the initial injection. Yet CAP fails to acknowledge that this multiplier effect also works in reverse. If carbon-intensive industries must pay an additional $100 billion to the federal government to purchase emission permits, then ultimately this implicit tax hike will contract economic output beyond this figure, because workers in the penalized industries now have less money to spend on local goods and services such as restaurants, etc. The government doesn’t create wealth simply by taking $100 billion from one group of firms and handing it over to a different group of businesses.

B. Flawed Measurements of Green and Other Jobs

The CAP study generates its main results through three steps: (1) estimating the direct effects of the spending on workers and goods, (2) using an input-output table which estimates the “indirect” effect on employment due to purchases made by the direct recipients, and (3) estimating “induced” jobs that come from later rounds of re-spending through a “multiplier” process. CAP’s readers will be unable to trace the path of the calculations in (1) and (2) because it does not present the complex underlying model, instead promising full details in a forthcoming study [xii]. Because CAP has no explicit model to generate induced jobs, the authors searched the economic literature for multiplier values. Faced with a range of possible values (some negative), they arbitrarily chose to estimate them as 1/3 of the total direct and indirect jobs, asserting that the choice was “conservative.” [xiii]

Despite the appearance of sophistication, the CAP analysis generates spurious numbers because of the improper underlying assumptions. In subsection A above, we have already discussed the problem with the “multiplier” approach: it counts the positive spillover effects on job growth from an exogenous increase in spending, but the analysis doesn’t use the same approach to account for the destruction of economic activity from the tax hike (or deficit increase) needed to fund the original injection of federal dollars. The CAP analysis neglects the adverse economic impacts that its recommended cap-and-trade system would yield, particularly for energy-intensive goods and services.

Finally, the input-output model implicitly assumes an infinitely elastic supply of unemployed workers. The CAP analysis counts up all of the jobs created directly and indirectly as a result of the green jobs program, but it does not account for the fact that at least some of those workers (and the money they in turn spend) will be siphoned from other industries. To the extent that some of the workers in the new, green positions simply will have moved from previous jobs, obviously there is no increase in total “spending” in the economy. In fact such cases present net losses to total output, because the government intervention directs those workers from higher-valued occupations into lower-valued ones. (If the opposite were true, then it wouldn’t take federal programs to move the workers.)

C. CAP’s Unrealistic Model of Labor Markets

CAP’s basic model of unemployment is very unrealistic. Unemployment is almost everywhere a transitional stage in which a person moves between a job that he or she no longer has (possibly because of a voluntary separation) and an open vacancy. CAP instead envisions a large number of unemployed who have for some reason lost their jobs and would take any that were available, if only someone (here the government) spent enough money to fund the positions. As an example, CAP notes that employment of construction workers dropped by 800,000 between July 2006 and July 2008 [xiv]. The report calculates that its green program will generate 2 million year-long jobs, and if they are the right types, the 800,000 construction workers will fill some of them, along with 1.2 million others. The study sees no costs of job transfer because recent data tell us that 8 million people will still be unemployed. This might be the case if the unemployed were a large stagnant pool, but they are not.

Workers change jobs and enter or leave the labor market at surprisingly high rates, and employers originate and close job slots with similar speed. In a typical quarter between 2000 and 2005, over 9 percent of U.S. workers changed employers, entered unemployment, or left the labor force. Another 9 percent were hired from other employers, left unemployment upon finding jobs, or entered the labor force from outside [xv]. Construction workers are more mobile than average. The same quarterly data show that for every 100 construction job slots in existence, approximately 14 new ones open up and another 14 are “destroyed” as projects are completed [xvi]. The project-specific nature of much construction work is one factor responsible for their above-average unemployment rates. Implementing CAP’s green policy will not change this characteristic of the construction industry—workers will simply be retrofitting older buildings instead of building new ones.

The unemployed themselves are a heterogeneous group. In 2007, 7.1 million were unemployed at any one time on average. One million of them were on temporary layoffs with high probabilities of returning to their old jobs [xvii]. Another 2.8 million were either entering the job market for the first time or returning from spells out of the labor force when they were not seeking work. Moreover, 1.1 million were between 16 and 19 years old, many surely living with families and hardly in hardship [xviii]. For the workforce as a whole, in October 2008 the median spell of unemployment was 10.6 weeks, during which many received unemployment compensation [xix]. The unemployment rate fluctuates with general economic conditions. In October 2007 it was 6.5 percent for construction workers (all workers average 4.4 percent) but the subprime crisis and drop in housing construction and deteriorating national economic conditions had brought it up to 10.7 percent in October 2008 [xx]. As of the latter month, the median spell of unemployment for construction workers was 8.8 weeks, two weeks less than the national average [xxi].

In short, the CAP study would have us believe that there is a large, stagnant pool of unemployed workers, who can be tapped to fill new green job slots without reducing output in other industries. But in reality, “the unemployed” is a constantly changing group, and government-created job openings will certainly hamper the private sector’s ability to direct job seekers into the most productive outlets.

D. Domestic Content

Economists disagree on many things, but the one area of consensus is that free trade raises living standards for all countries. Yet the CAP study contends that its green program is additionally desirable because a high proportion of the payouts will be spent on domestically produced goods, whose manufacture increases domestic employment:

The green investment program relies much more on products and services made within the U.S. economy and less on imports compared to spending either within the oil industry or on household consumption. These direct and indirect effects on job creation are the most sig¬nificant reason why the green investment stimulus program creates more jobs than a household-consumption stimulus. [CAP, p. 11]

Even on its own terms the CAP analysis doesn’t consider that with a massive new stimulus of $100 billion from the federal government, the green sector may see some of its costs rise, and will turn more and more to foreign imports for some of its key components. There is already a growing volume of international trade in renewables hardware, and the CAP program would amplify the trend [xxii]. There is of course nothing wrong with the renewables industries drawing on the cheapest inputs available, but the trend undercuts one of CAP’s arguments.

To repeat, the goal of energy producers is not to “create American jobs” but to provide energy to consumers at the lowest prices possible. If the energy industry uses some of its earnings to make foreign purchases, this is to contain costs and keep energy prices lower than they otherwise would be.

II. Job Opportunities for the Green Economy, by Pollin and Wicks-Lim (PERI)

As noted in Section I above, both of Pollin’s papers (CAP and PERI) are built around a policy that will allocate $100 billion from the federal government among six “green economy” strategies: retrofits to buildings, expansion of mass transit, building a “smart” electric grid that allows better management of production and consumption, expanding wind power, expanding solar power, and promoting research in “next generation” biofuels [xxiii]. In the previous section, we discussed various shortcomings in the CAP analysis, touting the alleged benefits of this program. In the present section, we focus on an issue unique to the PERI study.

The job-creation strategies recommended in CAP and PERI can only work if a sufficient number of workers with the requisite skills are available. The PERI study seeks to demonstrate that the relevant workers really are available to fill the millions of newly-created green positions. The PERI authors use input-output tables and occupational statistics to choose ten “representative jobs.” For example, wind farms require sheet metal workers, biofuels require chemists, and both require industrial truck drivers. PERI then examines the availability of people qualified for these jobs in each of 12 states. Using data on the numbers in each state employed in each type of job, the study concludes that the requisite skills to carry out its program are currently available.

Although it is less clear in PERI, the CAP study makes clear that “job creation” means that the chosen policy will reduce unemployment rather than take already-employed workers from their positions. If so, the data employed in PERI are thoroughly inappropriate. To see if the newly created jobs can be filled, instead of counting the employed the PERI study should have determined how many qualified people are unemployed. If there are 1,000 machinists in the state and 95 percent of them are employed, there are only 50 people who matter for (net) job creation. If an employed person changes to a green employer and no unemployed are available, his or her previous output is lost – one job has been created and another lost. PERI presents no data on whether the state’s unemployed population have characteristics that would allow them to quickly fill new jobs, many of which appear to require dedicated education or substantial training.

The PERI study fails to note that the skilled workers who are important to its findings generally have lower unemployment rates than the average for the labor force as a whole. In October 2008 the national unemployment rate was 6.1 percent, but “Managerial, Professional, and Technical” workers had an overall unemployment rate of 3.0 percent [xxiv]. The highest occupational unemployment rate was 10.1 percent for construction workers, a consequence of the past year’s collapse of homebuilding. In general, however, the “good jobs” are those with low turnover that have smaller numbers of unemployed. This means that federal efforts to create high-paying jobs will likely fill many of the new positions from the pool of already-employed workers, rather than drawing entirely from the ranks of unemployed workers.

III. U.S. Conference of Mayors, Current and Potential Green Jobs in the U.S. Economy,by Global Insight

A. How to Categorize Green Jobs?

This study and the next (ASES) attempt to estimate long-term employment in growing markets for renewable power and energy efficiency. While PERI and CAP looked at the effects of a single spending injection, these studies examine the jobs created by longer lasting green policies. Any estimates will depend on which particular workers and products are classed as green, and there are no clear boundaries between green and non-green. This arbitrariness allows researchers to choose boundaries that might give their readers quite different impressions about markets. It appears that these two studies are seriously biased toward a vision of large markets with high potentials for growth.

The Conference of Mayors study estimates that there are 751,000 green jobs today. As an example of the problem in defining the boundary between green jobs and ones of a different color, consider the choices of industries and job types to include in “renewable power generation,” an activity that bridges several standardized federal classifications. The study’s authors used a proprietary database to estimate 127,000 jobs in this area—a figure that appears quite high, but one that readers without access to the data cannot analyze. We can, however, conclude that the researchers probably created an overly high figure on several grounds. First, unlike most other studies, this one defined large hydroelectric and nuclear facilities as renewable alongside the more usual wind, biomass, geothermal and solar resources [xxv]. In 2006, nuclear units provided 19.3 percent of the nation’s power and hydroelectric facilities produced 7.1 percent. In contrast, the narrower class of renewables produced only 2.4 percent of the nation’s power [xxvi]. As defined in the study, “renewable” power output is twelve times greater than that of generators customarily defined as renewable by most environmental advocates. If so, considerably fewer than 127,000 workers currently hold jobs associated with non-hydro and non-nuclear renewables.

Other data in the study are also hard to interpret. The study claims that over half of those employed in green jobs (in the combined renewable and efficiency areas) held engineering, legal, research and consulting positions, a seemingly high figure that apparently does not include managers and supervisors. Lacking access to Global Insight’s database, we cannot further check their calculations or comment on the reasonableness of such numbers.

B. Productivity and Employment

As best can be determined, none of the four studies attempts to account for growth in worker productivity. This means that if output of a certain industry doubles, these studies assume that employment will do likewise. In reality, workers everywhere in the economy become more productive with the passage of time – their formal education continues to increase, they accumulate experience on the job, and they have more productive technologies to work with. Adjusting for expected productivity increases dramatically lowers the employment potential calculated in studies like these. A consensus estimate is that worker productivity in the U.S. has increased on average by 2 percent per year since 1970 [xxvii]. The compound growth of productivity means that a worker in 2038 will be the equivalent of 1.81 workers in 2008. If productivity does not increase, the Council of Mayors study projects a growth in green jobs from 750,000 today to 4.2 million in 2038. If we adjust for productivity growth, the planned 2038 outputs of renewable power, retrofits, etc. will require only 2.3 million workers rather than the 4.2 million that the study forecasts.

C. Renewable Generation: Performance and Potential

After broadly defining the renewable industry, the Council of Mayors study goes on to paint a picture of expanding markets that can only grow further. In reality, with the single exception of wind, U.S. power production from renewables has stagnated for the past fifteen years. Table 1 below shows that the total output of wood burning, waste burning, geothermal and solar power plants fell from 73.0 billion kilowatt hours (twh) in 1994 to 69.8 in 2007 [xxviii].

U.S. Power Generated by (non-Hydro) Renewables, 1994 and 2007

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly (Aug. 2008) Net Generation by Other Renewables: Total, at http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1_a.html

The seemingly impressive growth figures that appear in the Council of Mayors study reflect careful choices of data rather than meaningful trends. For example, on page 7 the study enthuses about a 23% increase in solar output between 2000 and 2007, which equates to 2.95 percent per year. Electricity generated from solar sources (photovoltaic plus thermal) equaled .0145 percent of total power, which grew at 1.28 percent per year in the same period. If its noted recent rates of growth persist, solar will produce 1 percent of the nation’s power supply by the year 2261 [xxix].

The failure of all renewables (other than wind) to expand from 1994 to 2007 occurred in the face of increasing political pressures to build renewables for the mitigation of climate change, including laws in over half the states that require utilities to invest in renewables. Indeed, the growth of wind power is largely an artifact of its favorable tax treatment rather than its economic viability. Wind turbines receive a federal production tax credit, currently 2 cents per kilowatt-hour, accelerated depreciation and additional benefits in some states. Investment in wind turbines has dropped by 75 percent or more in periods when a federal production tax credit lapsed [xxx]. After massive infusions of research and development funding, renewables remain the economic choice only in special situations. Renewables have environmental impacts of their own, and residents in numerous localities are coming to resist them as they already resist the siting of conventional powerplants near them. The growth of a renewables industry is far from guaranteed, and there are no known official projections that match the expected growth figures in the Council of Mayors study.

The document contains other misleading statements about the performance of renewables. With the exceptions of geothermal and hydro power, renewables are intermittent, e.g. solar units only produce when the sun is shining and wind units when the wind is blowing. Reliability requires additional investments in a full scale power grid and conventional generation. Thus the claim on page 6 that “wind generation in 2007 was enough to power more than 2.9 million homes” is misleading. Even though the total power generated by wind was equal to the total power used by 2.9 million households, it is not true that wind alone could have powered them, because of its intermittent nature.

IV. American Solar Energy Society, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency: Economic Drivers for the 21^st Century (ASES)

A. Definitional Differences

With no standardized definitions of the renewable and energy efficiency industries, authors of reports like these have a wide range of plausible choices. The Conference of Mayors calculated 751,000 jobs in the two industries today [xxxi]. ASES chose a far more expansive definition, and also provided figures on both direct jobs and indirect ones created by the input purchases of directly funded employers. It estimated 193,550 direct workers in renewable energy, 50 percent more than the Council of Mayors assumed under its own expansive definition of renewables. Both include workers in retrofits and directly related manufactures, e.g. insulation, in their definitions of the efficiency industry. ASES, however, includes jobs in the building of cars that exceed federal fuel economy standards by 10 percent or more, as well as appliances, computers and HVAC equipment that meets Energy Star or similar standards. Definitions like these yield a total of 3.5 million direct jobs in efficiency today, and 8.0 million direct and indirect [xxxii]. To see the arbitrariness, note that ASES’ estimate of today’s total jobs in the efficiency industry is 2.7 times the number of efficiency jobs the Council of Mayors projects for 2038 [xxxiii].

Unllike the Council of Mayors, ASES provides three growth scenarios but does not state their assumptions in detail. There is a “base case” in which laws and technology change little from today, a “moderate scenario” and an “advanced scenario” with legal and technological innovations that strongly favor renewables [xxxiv]. The base case brings forth 16.3 million direct and indirect jobs by 2030, and the advanced scenario 40.1 million. Like all of the other studies, it does not net out any employment lost as opportunities in the conventional power industry vanish and as industries that produce energy-intensive goods shrink due to higher energy costs rippling through the economy. Extrapolating from available data, the study estimates that renewables and efficiency will directly employ 17.4 million workers in 2030 in the advanced scenario [xxxv]. In a projected labor force of 180 million, fully 10 percent will be directly employed in renewables and efficiency.

B. The Implications of Job Creation

The larger the percentage of the workforce engaged in producing renewable power and efficiency, the smaller will be the output of other goods. The ASES study appears to argue that growth in renewable and efficiency workers is in itself desirable, but it is hard to see why if this shrinks the workforce available to produce other valuable goods and services. ASES and the Council of Mayors say nothing about where these workers will come from and how the change will affect the well-being of consumers.

The fact that building and operating renewable power generators requires more labor time than for conventional generators is a signal that the nation should not rush toward renewables in the haste that so many are urging today. If a megawatt of solar capacity requires four times the workers as a megawatt of coal-fired power, building the solar plant makes the nation poorer, other things equal [xxxvi]. The public is worse off because it sacrifices the outputs that those workers could have produced had they been employed elsewhere. The people purchasing the solar power enjoy a lower standard of living than was necessary.

Solar power is expensive, but may have environmental virtues that conventional power does not. The way to make a case for it is to compare its environmental attributes and its cost, which will be higher if more workers are required to build it. All of these studies implicitly argue in favor of renewables and efficiency improvements because building them creates job slots that conventional power does not. But this confuses mere job creation per se with the more important goal of creating high value-added jobs that efficiently use scarce labor resources to produce the most valuable output possible. Other things equal, it is a vice, not a virtue, if one production technique requires more labor hours to produce the same amount of energy. Indeed, it is precisely because of their higher costs that alternative sources currently do not pass the market test, and cannot compete without government assistance.

[ii] Robert Pollin and Jeannette Wicks-Lim, Job Opportunities for the Green Economy: A State-by-State Picture of Occupations that Gain from Green Investments, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, June 2008. Cited in text as “PERI.”

[iii] U.S. Conference of Mayors, Current and Potential Green Jobs in the U.S. Economy, prepared by Global Insight, Oct. 2008. Cited as “Conference of Mayors.”

[iv] American Solar Energy Society, Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency: Economic Drivers for the 21^st Century, prepared by Management Information Services, Inc., 2007. Cited as “ASES.”

[v] CAP p. 3.

[vi] CAP p. 12.

[vii] EIA, “Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy Markets 2007” (April 2008), Table ES5, page xvi, available at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/subsidy2/index.html.

[viii] ASES p. 46.

[ix] ASES p. 51.

[x] PERI p. 3.

[xi] CAP p. 15. He provides no citations for the dollar amounts.

[xii] CAP p. 20.

[xiii] CAP p. 22.

[xiv] CAP pp. 12-13.

[xv] Steven Davis et al, “The Flow Approach to Labor Markets: New Data Services and Micro-Macro Links,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 20 (Sum. 2006) 3-26, p. 6.

[xvi] Ibid p. 8.

[xvii] Lawrence Katz and Bruce Meyer, “Unemployment Insurance, Recall Expectations, and Unemployment Outcomes,”Quarterly Journal of Economics 105 (Nov., 1990), 973-1002.

[xviii] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey Table A-27 (Nov. 2008), at http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat27.pdf.

[xix] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Economic News Release, Table A-9 (Nov. 2008), at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm.

[xx] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Economic News Release, Table A-10 (Nov. 2008), at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t10.htm.

[xxi] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey Table A-37 (Nov. 2008), at http://www.bls.gov/web/cpseea37.pdf.

[xxii] International trade in renewable hardware is large and increasing. General Electric is the only important US producer of wind turbines, and its share of the domestic market fell from 59 to 44 percent between 2005 and 2007. U.S. Department of Energy, Annual Report on U.S. Wind Power Installation, Cost, and Performance Trends 2007 at 10. China is rapidly increasing its production of photovoltaics for both domestic use and exports.

[xxiii] PERI p. 3.

[xxiv] Engineers, architects, and legal occupations (all important in some job creation studies) were slightly higher, at 3.7 percent. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, Table A-30, at http://www.bls.gov/web/cpseea30.pdf.

[xxv] Conference of Mayors, p. 5.

[xxvi] U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Annual 2007. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat1p1.html.

[xxvii] See U.S. Energy Information Administration, Outlook for Labor Productivity Growth 2004, at http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/archive/aeo04/issues.html.

[xxviii] U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly (Aug.. 2008) Net Generation by Other Renewables: Total, at http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1_a.html.

[xxix] Even at their 2006 – 2007 growth rates (Solar 19.23%, All power 2.33%), solar becomes 1 percent of total power generated in 2033. Data are from U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly (Aug. 2008), Net Generation by Energy Source: Total (All Sectors) at http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1.html and Net Generation by Other Renewables: Total (All Sectors) at http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1_a.html.

[xxx] Ryan Wiser et al, Using the Federal Production Tax Credit to Build a Durable Market for Wind Power in the United States, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory LBNL-63583 (2007) at 3. http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/emp/reports/63583.pdf.

[xxxi] Conference of Mayors, p. 5.

[xxxii] ASES p. 31.

[xxxiii] The Council of Mayors number (at 17) is the total (4.2 million) less renewable power generation (1.2 million).

[xxxiv] ASES p. 39.

[xxxv] ASES does not split its projections into direct and indirect jobs. Today, however, they estimate direct jobs at 43 percent of the total. ASES p. 31.

[xxxvi] These are the numbers assumed by Daniel Kammen et al, Putting Renewables to Work: How Many Jobs Can the Clean Energy Industry Generate?” University of California Berkeley Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, 2004 at 10. http://rael.berkeley.edu/files/2004/Kammen-Renewable-Jobs-2004.pdf.