The Thorny Green Jobs Issue

I truly recommend this David Leonhardt interview with President Obama. Regardless of where you stand on his policies, you can agree that he understands the issues and can articulate a sharp vision. Here he talks about the need for a more balanced economy.

That’s why I don’t just want to see more college graduates; I also want to specifically see more math and science graduates, I specifically want to see more folks in engineering. I think part of the postbubble economy that I’m describing is one in which we are restoring a balance between making things and providing services, whether it’s marketing or catering to people or servicing folks in some way. Those are all good jobs, and we’re not going to return to an economy in which manufacturing is as large a percentage as it was back in the 1940s just because of automation and technological advance [...]

But the broader point is that if you look at who our long-term competition will be in the global economy — China, India, the E.U., Brazil, Korea — the countries that are producing the best-educated work force, whose education system emphasizes the sciences and mathematics, who can translate those technology backgrounds or those science backgrounds into technological applications, they are going to have a significant advantage in the economy. And I think that we’ve got to have enough of that in order to maintain our economic strength.

I think a healthy economy is going to have a broad mix of jobs, and there has to be a place for somebody with terrific mechanical aptitude who can perform highly skilled tasks with his hands, whether it’s in construction or manufacturing. And I don’t think that those jobs should vanish. I do think that they will constitute a smaller percentage of the overall economy. And so what we’re going to have to do is, with a younger generation, find new places for that kind of work.

The possibilities are there, though. I spoke during the campaign of this company that I visited, McKinstry, in Seattle, where you’ve got a bunch of welders and tradesmen who are now retrofitting buildings. They’re not performing the same kind of manufacturing that their fathers might have, but with similar skill sets they are now making hospitals and schools and office buildings much more energy efficient, and then that’s providing enormous value to the economy as a whole.

Interestingly enough, the current issue we're having with green jobs is that we're retaining the construction and labor sector but losing the knowledge sector, precisely the opposite of the President's proposed vision.

As the Obama government gets ready to raise a protectionist wall against offshoring, the US firms seem to be shipping more jobs to India.

The US firms have offshored 22,000 green technology jobs to India since January 1, 2009, Doug Brown, co-author of the influential 2009 Green Outsourcing Report, informed TNIE [...]

Noting an interesting irony the authors of the report say, “In the US, green stimulus plan is creating low-wage installation and construction jobs.” But, in India, which is usually associated with cheap and low-skill work, “…New green jobs include higher dollar engineers, strategic business management and support technicians charged with designing innovative environmental friendly solutions,” they add.

A country that can employ all these laborers to retrofit homes and build out the smart grid has some chance of stability, but only at the low-wage end. But the design and engineering sector has floated away to India.

And while providing green jobs in low-income communities may breathe economic life into those areas, the people living there may not be able to, well, breathe.

A read of the "Justice in the Air" report would maybe change that perspective. Using data from the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory and Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators reports, researchers were able to locate where toxic air pollution from industrial facilities is strongest. They also determined the percentage of racial minorities and low-income families who live in those heavily impacted areas. To no surprise, they found that African-, Latino- and Asian-Americans suffer the worst health risks. For example, 69 percent of those whose health is impacted by ExxonMobil's pollution are minorities [...]

So, how exactly can a green-jobs movement alleviate poverty without equal concern for pollution exposure and health consequences? What good is giving a person a job if their frail health from toxic pollution will affect their productivity? Most of the jobs that have been tagged for the poor -- you know, the ones that "can't be exported" and "don't require a diploma" -- are outdoor jobs. So if you're installing a solar panel on a roof, weatherizing a building, cleaning up waste, or doing urban garden work, chances are in America (if you're poor and/or black/Latino) you'll be doing this in an area prone to air pollution.

We need to address these issues of environmental justice. At-risk communities bear the brunt of toxic pollution. Heck, even James Inhofe sponsored a black carbon bill, so it's not like we need to drop these concerns for political expediency.

The green jobs movement makes some intuitive sense, but there are larger questions that need to be addressed, through regulating the air we breathe, through improving our educational competitiveness so all of the green economy can stay in America.

Sit-Down Strike For Pollution

Gas station owners in California have had FOUR YEARS to change over their pumps to comply with a new state law controlling toxic vapor emissions that leak from car fueling. They waited and waited and found themselves, at the last minute, staring into a deep recession without the ability to get credit to pay for the new capital expense. So they've done the sensible move by engaging in civil disobedience.

James Hosmanek, an ex-Marine, has operated his San Bernardino Chevron station for 21 years, patiently installing equipment to control gasoline emissions, even as the region's air grew smoggier.

Now he says he can't, and won't, obey the latest mandate: a state order to buy sophisticated nozzles and hoses to capture more of the vapors that cause respiratory disease and cancer. "It may be necessary to protect public health," he says. "But it's unaffordable."

I find it hard to weep for these owners who knew exactly when this deadline was coming for years and failed to make the necessary investment. But Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course, feels their pain. The so-called "green governor" wants the legislature to delay implementation of the rules.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants California's air-pollution fighters to delay a new rule that requires thousands of gas stations to beef up their pump nozzles so that less fuel vapor escapes into the atmosphere when drivers fill their tanks. The governor also asked the Legislature for a "one-year enforcement holiday" for the stations.

The new rule, scheduled to take effect Wednesday, requires the nozzles to block 98 percent of fuel vapor, up from the current regulation of 95 percent.

But the Republican governor late Friday asked Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols - an appointee of the governor -- to postpone the regulation by six months or a year because "significantly more time is needed before it can be successfully enforced without significant negative effects on our state economy."

Contrary to what the article says, the Governor has engaged in slow-walking and blocking environmental legislation for years, as long as the Chamber of Commerce calls for it. He forced the last Air Resources Board Chairman to resign due to meddling in the agency's affairs. And in February, he rammed into the budget a provision allowing construction firms to delay a changeover from diesel bulldozers into more energy-efficient equipment. He has always been terrible on the environment, and nobody should let the greenwashing fool them.

Meanwhile, Dave Cox (Yacht Party - Fair Oaks) seems to be taking the sober tack:

In the Legislature, Assemblyman Martin Garrick (R-Solana Beach) and Sen. Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks) are leading the charge to delay enforcement. On Monday, Cox called for the resignation of state Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary D. Nichols for being "recalcitrant" in refusing Schwarzenegger's request for a delay.

Mary Nichols should definitely resign for having the temerity to schedule a deadline four years in advance when she knew full well there would be a recession, thanks to her time machine.

Asm. Ira Ruskin (D-Redwood City) is carrying a bill that would offer $8 million dollars in grants to gas station owners who have not ordered the new equipment. That's kind of pitiful, but Californians could at least breathe a sigh of relief. And when I say that, I mean they could breathe.

KQED Radio has more.

The Green-Blue Alliance

This did not get the attention it deserved.

The Los Angeles Harbor Commission on Thursday unanimously approved a clean air plan requiring shipping companies to buy and maintain a modernized fleet of big rigs and employ thousands of independent truckers who currently operate under contract.

A spokesman for the American Trucking Assn. derided the plan as a "scheme to unionize port drivers" and vowed that his group would sue the port. Spokesman Curtis Whalen said the plan violates court rulings allowing the trucking industry unrestricted access to markets nationwide.

Nonetheless, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told about 300 truckers at Banning's Landing Community Center in Wilmington, "It's a great day. In a few months from now, your children will begin to breathe easier, and so will your grandchildren.

"Today, Los Angeles has said enough is enough," he added. "When 1,200 lives are cut short every year by a barrage of diseases, ranging from emphysema to cancer of the mouth, we have a moral obligation to act fast."

It's a big deal that the labor-enviro alliance, under the Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports worked and was able to push this through. There's more at Matt Yglesias' blog.

Labor has been at the forefront of practically every progressive advance in the past century. The fact that they're jumping aboard the environmental issues, which you would have thought impossible, is extremely meaningful.