Green energy jobs just aren't working for Obama

Washington Examiner:

President Obama has made much of his commitment to green energy as he launches his re-election bid, but the nascent industry has produced far fewer jobs than the president promised, despite massive, repeated infusions of taxpayer dollars.

Since taking office more than three years ago, Obama has routinely promoted wind, solar and other green energy efforts, touring factories -- often the beneficiaries of federal grants -- and touting the manufacturers as cutting-edge job producers who are leading America's transition to energy independence. He had promised in 2008 to help those companies create millions of jobs.

"We can invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy ... to create 5 million new jobs, new energy jobs, all across [the] country, jobs that pay well, jobs that can't be outsourced," Obama, the candidate, told an Ohio crowd.

But the president has fallen far short of his own mark.

The wind industry has actually lost about 10,000 jobs since 2009, even though it doubled its domestic production, the American Wind Energy Association reports. And Republicans were quick to point out that as Obama blocks the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas, the oil and gas industry has added 75,000 jobs since the start of his term.

Obama spent $90 billion of his stimulus package on green energy projects, including weatherization of buildings and development of electric vehicles. Yet, by the end of last year, just 16,100 people landed new jobs in the so-called green industry, Labor Department statistics show, far short of the 200,000 jobs the White House projected it would help create each year.

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The green energy business has difficulty delivering a product that is useful in quantities that people need.  It is too inefficient.  That has resulted in many of the companies failing.  Obama also though that domestic green energy companies would not see their jobs going overseas, but China subsidies were more effective than Obama subsidies in the industry.  In the one area that did create some US jobs, installation of solar panels on homes, Obama's tariffs are likely to hurt that business and actually reduce jobs.

Obama has sought to compound his poor investments in green energy by throwing more money in that sink hole while still trying to strangle domestic energy from oil, gas, and coal.