Biden wants millions of jobs related to clean energy. Can it happen?

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In comments last week before signing several executive orders targeting his climate agenda, Biden linked his energy policy directly to his plans to rebuild the U.S. economy, citing the need for new, green infrastructure that would generate millions of jobs.
“An important part of our Build Back Better Recovery Plan is building a modern, resilient climate infrastructure,” said Biden, “and a clean energy future that will create millions of well-paid union jobs – not $ 7, 8, 10, 12.” hours, but the prevailing wages and benefits. ”
During his campaign, Biden’s climate agenda included the goal of creating 10 million new clean energy jobs, in addition to the 3 million clean energy jobs that the campaign says currently exist. “If implemented strategically, our response to climate change could create more than 10 million well-paid jobs in the United States,” the plan says, without setting a timeline for that job-creating goal.

It is certainly an ambitious goal. Measuring the feasibility of Biden’s plan is quite difficult and depends on several variables, including whether Congress will pass climate legislation. Biden has proposed a $ 2 trillion climate plan that includes spending on things like overhauling green energy infrastructure in the US. Green jobs are also difficult to define, with different studies varying widely on the types of jobs they want to take up. For context, it’s also worth examining President Barack Obama’s climate and energy efforts, many of which were withdrawn under President Donald Trump, and the effect they had on green jobs.

Under the eight years of Obama’s presidency, the U.S. economy has added a total of 11.6 million new jobs, which only adds to the seriousness of Biden’s challenge, if, as he said during his campaign, he added 10 million new jobs to it. area of ​​clean energy.

Number of clean energy jobs

In order to measure the feasibility of Biden’s plan, it is first necessary to identify what these clean energy jobs are and to collect good data to establish a baseline and historical trends, which is not easy.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics studied what it called “green jobs” starting in 2010 before the cuts ended the study in 2013. The BLS broadly defined these jobs, in part, as jobs “where the duties of the employees consist of make their company’s production processes more environmentally friendly or use fewer natural resources. “

This definition was not limited to those who contribute directly to building, installing or maintaining green energy technology, but was so broad that it included jobs in sewage, publishers of environmental trade publications, and environmental and science museums, to name a few .

In its 2010 survey, the BLS reported that the US had “3.1 million jobs for green goods and services (GGS).”

A 2020 report from environmental entrepreneurs, an impartial group of business leaders focused on the environment and the economy, found that “[b]Before the COVID-19 crisis, nearly 3.4 million Americans worked in clean energy: solar, wind, energy efficiency, clean vehicles, and more. “

Bob Keefe, executive director of Environmental Entrepreneurs, said the research did not focus on the broad category of “green jobs,” but rather on jobs involved in the clean energy process.

“[P]”People can call anything they want a green job,” said Keefe, “whether it’s someone who works in recycling or something. OK, fine, they’re green jobs. I’m talking clean energy jobs . “

According to the report of environmental entrepreneurs, these clean energy jobs are up about 2% in 2019 and 4% in 2018. But if Biden wants to achieve just one million new jobs in clean energy in his first four years, there would be an annual an increase of 6.7% based on figures from the report on environmental entrepreneurs, and that’s after returning to pre-Covid employment levels.

Obama’s Efforts

Obama, who campaigned extensively to tackle climate change, ran into significant roadblocks everywhere from the courts, legislation that died in the Senate and eventually many of his administration’s new environmental regulations were repealed under President Donald Trump.

Obama passed the US Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009 to jump-start the economy in the midst of recession. The Recovery Act included grants and loans for the EPA and the Department of Energy.

A study led by Syracuse-based Professor David Popp examined the Recovery Act’s “green” funds – targeting environmental issues – and found that for every $ 1 million spent, 10 new jobs were created a few years later.

“Most of those jobs were manual labor, many of them in construction,” Popp told CNN. “Much of that is by design, because that’s where the money was directed” through energy efficiency renovations and installing renewable energy infrastructure.

Cap and trade laws, which allegedly set limits on corporate carbon dioxide emissions, died in a Senate controlled by 57 Democrats – seven more than Biden currently has – after the House passed the bill in 2009.

“[Obama] had this one huge setback, and then he lost control of Congress, ”Adam Rome, an environmental historian at the University of Buffalo, told CNN.

Despite Democrats controlling Congress by only a razor-thin margin, Rome said, Biden would have the opportunity to work on “legislative, not executive action” to address climate change.

“Biden, I think, recognizes he’s having the sort of New Deal moment here,” Rome said.

Biden’s challenge

Biden cannot carry out his massive $ 2 trillion clean energy plan without action from Congress. Right now, the president would need every Senate Democrat on board to pass the necessary legislation – and he might even need Republicans to sign up as Democrats like Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema continue to oppose the filibuster being eliminated.

The current pandemic is also creating limits on what Biden can currently achieve in Congress, with most members targeting an economic stimulus package from Covid-19. And if the president is unable to pass a stimulus package, it is extremely unlikely that his climate agenda would.

Even if Biden approves his energy plan, through a senate with widespread disagreement over environmental policy, experts disagree on whether his goal of millions of jobs on clean energy is attainable.

“If the question is, I think Biden’s plans will create millions of jobs, the answer is yes,” Keefe told CNN. “Is it 10 million? Is it 20 million? I think that has yet to be determined.”

Keefe noted that some of these future jobs are already in the planning stages, with General Motors announcing that it would only produce zero-emission vehicles by 2035.

Benjamin Zycher, a resident scientist working on energy and environmental policy at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, told CNN that “more expensive energy means less employment. It’s that simple.”

“The best you can hope for,” said Zycher, “is just a shift of employment from other sectors to green sectors, defined anyway.”

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