GREEN JOBS MYTH
Hedge fund billionaires who oppose AB 32 suspension claim California’s job-killing global warming law will create a green jobs utopia. However, their rhetoric does not line up with the facts.
Their plan is to impose hefty new taxes and fees on all of us and use some of the proceeds to subsidize certain “green” companies – a plan that they themselves profit from.
Model “green economy” Spain has been a disaster
Spain has been touted by proponents of AB 32 and national cap and trade as a model of green jobs creation. However, an independent analysis by Spanish researchers at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos found a program similar to AB 32 killed over two traditional jobs for every one green jobs created. Even worse, most of these new green jobs were temporary in fields such as windmill construction. The analysis has now been verified by the Spanish government which found the consequences could be even worse. “Green” jobs in effect cost blue collar and union jobs.
Green jobs numbers don’t add up
Between 2003 and 2009, California has created only 10,000 green jobs a year. However, since November of 2007, our state has lost 1.37 million jobs, sending our unemployment to record highs. While before the passage of AB 32, California’s unemployment rate roughly tracked the national average, our unemployment is now one of the nation’s highest with entrepreneurs reluctant to invest in a state ranked as one of the highest taxed and least economically free in the nation.
Solar panel manufacturers sell in California but create jobs in China
It costs 38% more to build solar panels in California than in Tennessee – which is why European corporations have invested $2.3 billion in two Tennessee manufacturing plants to build solar panels for our state. Even a California-based solar panel manufacturer has chosen to build its panels elsewhere, choosing to build one of the largest solar panel plants in America, not in California, but in Georgia. Another major solar company, touted by Prop. 23 opponents, closed a factory the day after the election and send the lost jobs to China. Global warming mandates that ban traditional incandescent light bulbs in favor of compact fluorescent bulbs have just resulted in the shutdown of the last incandescent light bulb factory in America with the newly created “green” jobs going to China.
While some might expect AB 32 to turn California into a magnet for jobs in solar panel manufacturing, the unfriendly climate created for manufacturers is actually sending money to other states for the construction of panels to be installed here.
