WA Governor talks green job success

There has been lots of talk about the clean energy jobs that can be created with substantial US investment in green industries, but in a Senate hearing this week the talk was less about potential and more about results. Washington Governor Christine Gregoire testified:

In 2007, Gregoire set a goal of having 25,000 green jobs in her state by 2020, but that goal has been met in just two years with 47,000 jobs in the state now considered “green,” she said. Washington has also had dramatic success in ramping up its wind power industry; in 2001, virtually none of the state’s power came from wind, but now Washington ranks fifth in the nation in wind production, the governor said.  The state is a member of the Western Climate Initiative and has taken steps to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and promote renewables.

Gregoire talked about one issue with the proposed energy and climate legislation in Congress–giving utilities too much credit for increases in energy efficiency (as opposed to clean energy) when setting a green energy standard.

“If we’re not careful, we’re going to diminish the renewable efforts that we’ve got going in my own home state by giving far too much credit for efficiency,” Gregoire told reporters after the hearing.

The House passed bill combines efficiency and clean energy in a Renewable Energy Standard.  There’s nothing wrong with efficiency, of course, but by combining the two into one standard utilites are more likely to adopt efficiency measures (less expensive) at the cost of developing new sources of clean energy (more expensive.)

(Another signficant issue is a threat to the “voluntary” clean energy market–businesses that choose to buy clean energy because they like what it does for their image.  More on that here.)