Denver green jobs rally at Alliance for a Sustainable Colorado, Sept. 27, 2008. (Photo/Greenforall.org)

The $785 billion spending bill that Obama signed Tuesday, shortly after he toured the sparkling solar-paneled roof of the Denver Museum, will save or create 3.5 million jobs over the next two years, according to the White House. Environmental groups, happy about the sharp departure from Bush administration policies, say up to 1.5 million or 40 percent of the jobs created by the unprecedented legislation will be “green” — meaning they will contribute to decreasing energy consumption, lowering oil demand and switching to renewable sources.

But the carbon-based reality of the new president’s spending scheme was illuminated just after Obama signed the legislation. Within minutes, Missouri’s Department of Transportation became the first governmental entity to actually tap the stimulus money. The state announced it was using the new federal money to fund an $8.5 million project to replace a bridge in rural Tuscambia. The Obama stimulus program, it turns out, will also save or create hundreds of thousands of jobs that might be called “gray” jobs — positions with less environmentally friendly results, such as new road construction that encourages the use of carbon-fueled vehicles.

In fact, a review of the energy and transportation provisions of the stimulus program reveals a spending program that is much “grayer” than most media coverage has suggested, with up to a quarter of all the jobs created under the program likely to come from highway and road construction that do nothing to reduce fossil fuel consumption or protect the environment — and may actually encourage traffic, sprawl and greenhouse gas emissions. While “green” groups are happy with the Obama program, so is the highway lobby.

The Obama program authorizes $27.5 billion in spending authorized for highways and bridges, 50 percent more than the $18.9 billion that Environment America, a Washington-based coalition of state advocacy groups, says will go to environmentally friendly transportation purposes. The road construction money is most likely to go to 20th-century freeways and suburban thoroughfares that enable carbon-fueled cars, gas-guzzling Hummers and long-distance truckers to move from factory to mall to office park to subdivision more easily.

That money will pay for “increasing or improving capacity in places where people need it,” says Tony Dorsey, spokesman for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. The vast majority of Americans, Dorsey points out accurately, rely on private transportation for work and leisure. It is only natural, he says, that “the lion’s share [of funding] go where the greatest need is.”

And if the Federal Highway Administration is right, that funding will generate lots of jobs. That agency’s oft-cited formula holds that every $1.2 billion in infrastructure spending generates approximately 35,000 jobs. At that rate, the Obama program would create 802,000 road construction jobs — more than half the 1.5 million “green” jobs predicted by Environment America and almost a quarter of the total 3.5 million jobs saved or created that the White House anticipates.

Such predictions are open to question. Robert Pollin, economics professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst, a prominent advocate of “green” jobs programs, questions the Federal Highway Administration’s formula. He said his research suggests that traditional highway and road work creates 19 jobs per $1 million spent, or 22,800 jobs per $1.2 billion, about a third less than the government estimate.

A lot depends on what happens in the next few weeks as the departments of transportation in 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico decide which projects should be prioritized. The DOTs, as they are known, will have a central role in deciding whether the Obama stimulus program turns out to be “green” or “gray.”

“Once the money starts flowing,” says Tony Dorsey, “it’s going to be spent awfully fast.”

Some environmentalists worry that bureaucratic inertia will generate more new roads, not a 21st-century infrastructure.

“Most stimulus project lists from state DOTs prioritize new highways while paying relatively little attention to repairing crumbling bridges and roads and even less emphasis on forward-looking transportation options,” such as public transit and the the country’s major inter-city rail network, wrote Phineas Baxandall of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group in a recent paper.

The Missouri DOT makes no bones that roads and bridges are its priority. According to a press release, the state expects to receive $637 million for road and bridge projects, more than four times as much as the estimated $150 million it will receive to address air, rail, transit, waterway and pedestrian projects. Baxandall surveyed 38 state DOTs about their plans to spend stimulus money and found that 18 of them plan to spend more than 80 percent of the stimulus funds on new local streets. Only two, Illinois and New Hampshire, plan to spend more than half their infrastructure spending on transit, aviation, bicycle and pedestrian purposes.

The administration’s desire to pump money into the economy inherently conflicts with its “green” agenda, said Scott Bernstein, president the Center for Neighbhorhood Technology in Chicago, which promotes sustainable urban development.

“It’s hard for there not to be a lot of ‘gray’ jobs” in the stimulus package, he said in a telephone interview. Bernstein pointed to the repairs needed on I-94, a major highway running through the state of Illinois, as an example. “Is it ‘green’ to fix them?” he asked. “It’s greener than the alternative of building new roads. But it is still going to be a highway. Fixing the road will induce more traffic.

“If you take the money and spend it on an alternatives to motorized travel, things are going to be a lot cleaner,” Bernstein said. “But doing that optimally is not as quick” as fixing roads.

Despite the ‘gray’ streak in the stimulus program, most ‘green’ groups are happy with its overall color.

David Foster, director of the San Francisco-based Blue-Green Alliance, praised the program as “a true down payment on a new, ‘green’ economy.”

Environment America chimed in with a press release estimating the program will create 731,000 jobs in the renewable energy sector, including 165,000 in the solar industry. The solar panels that Obama viewed in Denver were installed by Namaste Solar, a Colorado-based firm, whose president told reporters earlier this week that he plans to add 20 employees because of the stimulus program.

Environmental America predicts provisions to expand weatherization assistance to homeowners and improve energy-efficiency of federal office buildings will create 488,850 new jobs. Spending on mass transit and high-speed rail projects, the Washington-based group says, will sustain another 388,120 jobs, they say.

Pollin also questions these assumptions. The putative employment benefits of weatherization are based on a Department of Energy (DOE) finding that $1 million spent on programs to caulk, winterize and insulate low-income homes creates 52 direct jobs and 23 indirect jobs for every $1 million spent

“That figure is not realistic,” says Pollin. He says his research shows that if the government spends $700,000 on energy-efficiency and $300,000 renewable energy programs, the $1 million will generate approximately 17 new jobs. That’s two-thirds less than the DOE estimate.

Pollin’s lower estimates of job creation may disappoint liberals who already fear the Obama program will not be big enough to blunt the deepest recession in decades. Whatever the estimates, there is no dispute that the Obama stimulus program is the largest infusion of money ever into the country’s weatherization, renewable energy and high-speed rail programs.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel made sure that the U.S. high-speed rail endeavor received $8 billion. The expansion of the U.S. program to develop state-of-the-art rail systems in 11 regions across the country is one of the “greenest” features of the new bill, supporters say.

All told, the stimulus bill marks a decisive change in traditional “gray”/”green” spending priorities, says Dan Weiss of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington.

Under current spending plans, roads and bridges enjoy an 83 percent to 17 percent spending advantage over transit, according to Weiss. The stimulus bill, by contrast, authorizes $29 billion for highway spending and $17.1 billion for other forms of transit, a ratio of 63 to 37 percent. In other words, road spending still has an advantage but it is smaller.

The narrowing gap, he says, is proof that “the ‘green’ energy agenda is very much on track.” Meanwhile, the enduring ‘gray’ reality of carbon-centric public policy endures.

Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (Photo/chickago66, Flickr)

He proselytized on the revolutionary benefits of one of his pet projects: a national energy smart grid, construction of which, he said, should be a top priority, that it would be the best kind of economic stimulus and a matter of national security.

“We give $700 billion dollars every year to Saudi Arabia. That money would all stay here. We’d be building a new economy based on U.S. entrepreneurship rather than Saudi oil… Imagine, the United States will have free energy forever.”

Answering a question posed by the Colorado Independent on the federal stimulus package and whether it might significantly move the nation toward a green economy, he said that he was pessimistic in general about the ability of the stimulus to turn the economy around quickly.

“And the problem [regarding green energy development] is that the stimulus is looking for projects that are shovel ready, ready to go immediately. Our opportunity lies [not in the stimulus package but] in the energy plan.”

He also detailed the work of some of the companies he backs through his partnership in Vantage Point, a $5 billion investment firm. Silicon Valley electric car company Better Place, for example, has teamed with Renault and Nissan to transfer the entire country of Israel from gasoline to electric transportation. The country’s cars will be powered by wind, geothermal and solar farms.

“This is happening, right now, with technology available today. And it will happen here, too…”

He was best in railing against the “crony capitalist” myth that we have to choose between protecting the environment and growing the economy. “It’s propaganda… Rush Limbaugh says we value the Spotted Owl more than we value people, that we’re radical tree huggers. There’s nothing radical about wanting clean air to breathe, water to drink that’s free of chemicals. Our concern for the Spotted Owl is concern for ourselves. It’s the difference between true free-market capitalism and crony capitalism. You show me a polluter and I’ll show you a business dependent on government subsidies. They externalize their true costs by making taxpayers pay to clean up their mess. It’s deficit spending, passing on a debt to our children that they’ll never be able to pay.”

He said that when he speaks to Republican crowds, they’re very receptive.

“They say, ‘Why didn’t I know that?’ and I say, ‘Because you get your news from Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.’ Eighty percent of Republicans are just Democrats who don’t know what’s going on.”

Colorado capitol dome.

Denver native Mark Mehringer told The Colorado Independent today that he will officially throw his hat in the ring next month to succeed longtime, but term-limited, state Rep. Terrance Carroll (D-Denver) in House District 7. Carroll will become speaker of the Colorado House next month when the 2009 legislative session convenes Jan. 7.

Mehringer, 33, hopes to capitalize on his deep community roots and political experience with the Denver Democratic Party to promote a campaign focused on capitalizing on the green jobs vogue.

“The area should be well-positioned for those kinds of jobs,” said Mehringer. “I don’t think any area is better-suited in terms of transportation than northeast Denver because the airport and I-70 and I-270 are right there for truck traffic.”

Abundant rail lines also play into the renewable energy jobs plan to transport massive wind power turbines that could be manufactured in the district, Mehringer says.

One thing that will be critical to the plan’s success is an educated workforce in an emerging industry, according to Mehringer. He said he hopes to to create partnerships with the community college system in nearby Aurora and high-school technology programs to build a highly trained labor pool to attract new green businesses.

Why announce his intentions to run now, a full 20 months before the 2010 election?

“Part of it is having a vision and being able to represent the area but also make a real difference,” he offered. “With the timing and economy and the opportunity that there’s going to be all this money spent on green jobs, if you don’t have somebody who understands these issues, we’re going to miss out.”

Mehringer, who is a professional pollster, explains that he is uniquely positioned to promote green jobs in the district because he’s extensively studied the subject to assist environmental clients on renewable energy, ethanol and political concerns.

In 2007, Mehringer held a three-month fellowship with the Center for Independent Media and wrote for The Colorado Independent’s prior incarnation, Colorado Confidential.com, where he covered the environmental and renewable energy beat.

The Stapleton resident said that he expects to have to raise in the range of $80,000 to $100,000 to run a competitive race that will surely attract several candidates for the seat which is open for the first time in eight years since Carroll was appointed to the seat by a vacancy committee in 2002.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of people who will have interest,” he admitted. “It will depend a lot on what happens with the replacement of Sen. [Ken] Salazar too. If it ends up being Mayor Hickenlooper who gets the seat … then suddenly you open up a mayoral election. And we’re still not through the [local] Obama appointments.”

Knowing that the forthcoming 2009 state legislative session will be challenging in the midst of a tanking national economy, Mehringer said that he’s hoping that the Democratic leadership will reach across the aisle to work in a bipartisan effort in tough times and in the event that the state suddenly becomes flush with federal infrastructure stimulus funding.

In either scenario, Mehringer says he’s equipped to enter the Legislature because, in the polling business, he’s accustomed to giving bad news.

“I’ve had plenty of clients who I worked for, someone who basically had no chance of winning but I did my best to let them know what their strengths and what what their weaknesses were. But you have to make some tough decisions sometimes,” he said. “That’s a part of life.”

These are just some of the promises made by President-elect Barack Obama during the long presidential campaign. He is now focused sharply on the nation’s economic woes, saying that solving the grave economic crisis is his top priority. But Obama made many other promises in the name of “change” — expanding health-care coverage, improving education, devising an exit strategy for Iraq, shutting down Guantanamo Bay. Everyone wants to know which of these goals Obama will focus on when he takes office Jan. 20.

So far, the president-elect has hinted that making the U.S. more energy independent is his No. 2 priority, after the economy. But that need not be incompatible with restarting economic growth. For example, developing alternative energies like wind and solar could lead to more green jobs.

Still, delivering on these energy promises won’t be easy. In the short term, reviving the economy could mean greater demand for oil, because U.S. manufacturers are largely powered by fossil fuels.

But, for the long term, many energy experts have recommendations about how to mesh energy and economic goals. They have pointed suggestions about what could be Obama’s most realistic targets in fulfilling his green promises.

Greener economic pastures
On the campaign trail, Obama said he would create 5 million green jobs by investing $150 billion in clean energy over 10 years. That translates into 500,000 jobs a year.

Brooks Yeager, executive vice president of Clean Air-Cool Planet, a non-partisan group, said that such a goal is not unrealistic. “There’s a lot of potential for growth in [green] jobs, but it depends on the mix of investments and policies.” One job-producing policy favored by Clean Air-Cool Planet would have the federal government invest in projects to retrofit existing buildings, to make them more energy efficient. This could create much engineering and construction work.

Yeager doesn’t believe that shifting to a renewable-energy-based economy would cause employment havoc in fossil-fuel industries. “In most economic models of how [this] system would work,” he said, “you don’t lose many jobs in these traditional … industries; you reduce their rate of growth.” Meanwhile, the rate of job growth in clean energy would increase, which would help offset job losses in traditional industries.

Not everyone agrees. The Institute for Energy Research, a think tank promoting free-market-based energy policies, is skeptical about any increase in green-job creation if the economy tries to kick its addiction to oil. “We’ve done some analysis with the green-jobs stuff,” said Dan Kish, senior vice president for policy, “and we don’t quite get it. … Nobody really knows where these green jobs are.”

Kish says that all the talk about an explosion in green jobs is speculative because the development of renewable-energy industries is so dependent on government subsidies.

“We’re never against tax incentives for [new industries] — that’s probably the least damaging way you can go about things,” he said. But he worried that such incentives would be paired with regulations requiring states to generate a portion of electricity from renewable sources. That, Kish contends, could artificially hike utility bills for consumers.

“Take somebody on a fixed income,” Kish said, “whose rent is going up and [cost of] food is going up. If his electric bill starts going up, too, because the government says [utilities] have to use a certain type of electricity, all he knows is that he’ll be paying more for utilities.”

The largest industrial trade union, the United Steelworkers in North America sees an upside in such regulations. Requiring that a portion of electricity be generated from renewable sources would mean more investment in existing and new green technologies, which, in turn, would create jobs, contends Roxanne Brown, assistant legislative director for the union.

“A part of the reason [clean energy] industries haven’t taken off as much as they have in other countries,” Brown said, “is because the investment is not there to help these industries grow. [Regulatory] policies would drive that investment.”

Brown contends that the jobs now being lost in construction and manufacturing are comparable to those that would be created if more solar- and wind-power plants were built, and additional buildings and infrastructure projects were made to comply with more energy-efficient standards.

Oily realities
Obama has said that reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil will be a priority of his administration. One proposal he’s made about this involves putting one million new plug-in hybrid cars on the road. But now that oil prices have fallen below $60 a barrel, this goal seems further out of reach.

With the average price of gasoline at around $2.20 a gallon, consumers could very well return to old, gas-guzzling habits, says David Pumphrey, director of the energy and national security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This could make hybrid electric cars less attractive to the average consumer. Pumphrey told The Washington Independent last month, for example, that he expects to see a rise in SUV sales if gas prices remain low.

He conceded, though, that given the “uncharted territory” that gas prices have seen this year, it’s hard to predict what will happen. Gas prices have trampolined up and down more drastically than ever, reaching an all-time high of $4 a gallon over the summer and then plummeting to half that. What’s really unpredictable is what will happen to the oil industry as it struggles with a growing economic crisis.

The economic downturn, though, could be just what the doctor ordered when it comes to reducing dependence on foreign oil. As the economy worsens, demand for oil drops. Less productivity means less fuel consumption. This is why oil prices dropped so quickly.

The volatility of oil prices, says Yeager of Clean Air-Cool Planet, may also contribute to a decrease in oil consumption, because businesses may seek fuels that are more economically sustainable over time. “Ultimately, it’s important to get a steady price signal — one that incorporates the real cost of using or overusing [oil],” Yeager said.

Acclimatizing policy
On the campaign trail, Obama said he was committed to reducing U.S. CO2 emissions by 80 percent, to meet recommendations set by the United Nations. To achieve this goal, Obama has talked about launching a carbon cap-and-trade system, which would first enforce a cap on the annual amount of CO2 released by industry and then allow companies to trade or bid on permits to emit CO2. Cap-and-trade would reward companies that innovate their way out of emitting CO2 and punish companies that don’t.

Clean Air-Cool Planet offers recommendations to the Obama administration on what a cap-and-trade system should look like. The organization suggests holding CO2 auctions in which companies can bid for the right to pollute; the revenue from the auctions would be “recycled” back to taxpayers in the form of income-tax reductions. Using the revenue to cut income taxes would offset any additional costs consumers might face, Clean Air-Cool Planet contends. For instance, if a utility company uses new technologies to decrease emissions, it may have to charge consumers extra; but with revenue recycling, consumers could actually make money off of the deal.

“We think this mechanism is essential to a larger economic revitalization strategy” to pull the country out of recession, said Yeager.

Groups like the Institute for Energy Research think tank, however, contend that a cap-and-trade program is not a free-market solution. Cap-and-trade, writes Institute economist Robert Murphy,” relies on a political scheme to increase costs, and can therefore be justly viewed as a tax, stealthy or otherwise, on energy — the lifeblood of our economy.”

But there are other ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that free-market thinkers should embrace, contends John Topping, president of the Climate Institute, a large nonprofit working to raise awareness about climate change. He says that one of the first things Obama should do after Jan. 20 is lift restrictions on energy recycling. The U.S. generates about 6.5 percent of its energy from recycling the waste-heat that comes off industrial smokestacks. In most states, only utilities are allowed to harvest this waste-heat, which is produced by oil refineries, steel mills and other factories.

Opening this energy source to the free market could not only drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions, Topping says, it could result in huge savings for the country’s economy. “Reasonable estimates say that you could save somewhere between $70 billion and $80 billion annually and cut overall CO2 emissions by 20 percent,” said Topping.

One would think energy recycling would be a favorite of environmentalists and free-market advocates. But green activists argue that energy recycling would be tough to market, Topping speculates, because images of pollution don’t immediately convey environmentally friendly practices. For everyone else, there’s a fear that large utilities would have to pay more for access to waste-heat and then pass the higher cost on to customers.

The double-green bottom line
Regardless of the mechanism, greater energy efficiency is the one goal that analysts across the ideological spectrum can agree on as a worthwhile. Policies and market forces that promote energy conservation can produce economic and environmental savings.

If measures to improve energy efficiency were adopted in transportation, lighting, construction, infrastructure and fossil fuel sectors, says Climate Institute president Topping, we could kill a lot of birds with just one stone.

“You can make a really huge difference,” Topping said, “without sticking it to the American taxpayer or to the consumer.”