WASHINGTON – Earlier today, the trade panel of the House Energy & Commerce Committee held a hearing entitled “Growing U.S. Trade in Green Technology.” Institute for Energy Research (IER) board member Steven Hayward, a fellow of law and economics at the American Enterprise Institute, was among those asked to testify.
Thomas J. Pyle, president of IER, a market-oriented energy think tank, issued the following statement in response to today’s hearing:
“The direct transfer of wealth, jobs and opportunity from the United States to the rest of the world has begun in earnest, as a program sold to Americans under the banner of ‘green jobs,’ but, in reality, will generate little more than pink slips. Unfortunately, rather than working to ensure that Europe’s failed experiments don’t harm us more than they already have, a number of committee members today actually called on Congress to send more of our taxpayer money overseas, viewing this as some sort of bizarre solution for addressing climate change.
“As Dr. Hayward testified today, America’s subsidization of expensive, unreliable forms of energy cannot be sustained domestically, and cannot be defended as a foreign transfer aboard. It’s my hope that the committee left today’s hearing with a better understanding of what we can expect under this regime, and a better appreciation of the consequences it would necessarily visit upon the American people.”
The following excerpts were taken from Dr. Hayward’s prepared remarks:
“At the present time, the U.S. runs a trade deficit in renewable energy technologies, and there is good reason to expect this to continue, especially if there is a significant expansion in the deployment of renewable sources here in the U.S.”
If the U.S. and Europe place a higher price on carbon while the developing world does not, it will ironically make fossil fuels more attractive for the developing world. Either way, it is easy to predict that in ten years our leading energy technology export will still be oil and gas drilling equipment, where we currently enjoy a trade surplus.”
“Above all, policymakers should regard with skepticism claims of net new jobs in the energy sector that depend on subsidies or mandates.”
- Click HERE to view Dr. Steven Hayward’s testimony from today. Hayward, a F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow in Law and Economics at the American Enterprise Institute, is an IER board member.
- Click HERE to view a recent Washington Post article on green jobs entitled “In Michigan, A Yellow Light for Green Jobs.”
- Click HERE to read a WHAG-TV report under the headline “Is President Obama Overpromising Green Jobs?”
For additional information, please contact Patrick Creighton, 202-621-2947, or Laura Henderson, 202-621-2951.
#####
