Senators Urged to Invest in Green Tech Programs

Sep 26 - Oakland Tribune

Entrepreneurs, scientists and venture capitalists, including two leaders on energy issues from the Bay Area, urged senators Tuesday to invest in green tech programs they said would create jobs and help achieve energy independence.

The green tech proponents were met with opposition and skepticism from a couple of economists and analysts, including former House Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey, who warned that a dramatic, mandated shift to renewable fuels would drive up energy costs and hurt the economy.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Environment Committee, scheduled the hearing Tuesday during what was billed as climate week, with international meetings on global warming hosted by the United Nations and the Bush administration. Boxer said efforts to mandate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions would help the economy and create many new jobs.

Vinod Khosla, one of Silicon Valleys leading venture capitalists, assured senators that he was testifying not to make an environmental case for climate change legislation but an economic one.

The development of alternative fuels, even at an early stage, is creating jobs in California, Khosla said, and that will take off when governments do more to limit oil and coal use. He said many investors and companies are reluctant to invest in energy infrastructure, such as new plants, until they see if serious emissions controls are coming.

A University of California at Berkeley study found more jobs will be generated by investing in renewable energy than in a comparable investment in fossil-fuel sources that exist today.

What we need is a level playing field, said Khosla, citing large government subsidies and tax breaks for oil and coal.

Sigmar Gabriel, Germanys environment minister, told the committee that his countrys investment in renewable energy has helped create 1.5 million jobs in the last five years.

The director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at Berkeley, Daniel Kammen, said the United States is trying to catch up to European nations and Brazil, who are reaping economic benefits from investment in renewable energy.

Kammen, who worked on Californias low-carbon fuel standard, noted that the U.S. ethanol industry created

147,000 jobs in 2004, gener-

ating $2 billion in new tax revenue, yet Congress and the Bush administration have cut the budget for energy research and development since the 1990s.

As a nation, we invest less in energy research, development and deployment than do a few biotech firms in their own private R&D budgets, Kammen said.

But Armey warned that limitations on carbon-based fuels constitute a supply shock that would inevitably drive up energy costs for consumers and businesses. Armey now heads Freedom Works, a grassroots group that promotes market-based solutions to problems.

There are real doubts now that green tech will be a job creator, Armey said. The very best you could say is that it would mean no net job reduction.

Armey and Kenneth Green, an environmental policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said emissions controls in the United States, if not enacted in other countries, would drive more businesses to India and China, where energy costs would be lower.

Armey and Khosla conducted a polite debate over economic projections. Emission controls would definitely mean higher costs, Armey said, while Khosla said many economic models ignore the impact of technological innovation and missed the takeoff of Internet businesses in the 1990s.

Innovation will lead to declining costs (for renewable fuels), and China and India will move quickly to take advantage of that, Khosla said in a brief interview after the hearing.

Elsewhere on the green tech front, Oakland activist Van Jones said more than 50 businesses today will announce support for Green for All, a project to fund job-training for solar-panel installers and other skilled work. The city of Oakland has kicked in $250,000 for one program.

Employers say they will need a highly trained green-collar workforce, and this could mean good jobs for African Americans and others in cities, said Jones, who cofounded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, based in Oakland.

Jones said plans for launching the job-training project will be announced at a meeting today of business and community leaders at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.

Frank Davies can be reached at fdavies@mercurynews.com or (202) 662-8921.

Originally published by Frank Davies, MEDIANEWS STAFF.

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