An exchange between Rep. Connie Mack and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis today made clear that the heated battle between the Obama administration and Republicans over the president's efforts to bolster the clean energy economy isn't in danger of cooling down anytime soon.
Mack, R-Fla., scoffed at the notion that the Obama administration would count the driver of hybrid buses as a "green job."
"How can you call this a green job?" Mack asked Labor Secretary Hilda Solis during the exchange at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. "If I'm sitting in a chair that's made out of green material, does that make my job green?"
It's unlikely Solis was surprised by the query. The hearing, after all, was dubbed: How Obama's Green Energy Agenda is Killing Jobs.
Solis, a former lawmaker who was a champion of bolstering the green economy when she served in the House, was similarly combative in her response.
"Mr. Congressman, would you rather have that person unemployed?" Solis shot back. "It's an industry that is green. The industry in which he is employed is fuel-efficient."
In recent weeks, GOP lawmakers have raised questions about a Department of Energy loan guarantee program -- funded through the White House's $825 billion stimulus plan -- after solar energy company Solyndra filed bankruptcy this month.
Republicans have suggested that a $535 million loan to Solyndra was fast-tracked by the White House and noted that the foundation of Obama bundler and Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser owned 35% of the company.
Today, Republicans turned their attention more broadly to the effectiveness of Obama's green energy initiatives, with GOP lawmakers contending the Obama administration exaggerates the impact green energy policieshave on improving the economy and creating jobs. Obama pledged as a candidate to add 5 million green jobs to the economy.
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee released a report today charging that the White House's green jobs initiative is little more than an effort to unite "environmentalists and union leaders in a deliberate effort to consolidate an ideologically based agenda."
"Taking office amidst the worst recession since the Great Depression, President Obama confronted an unemployment crisis by focusing on the promotion of 'green jobs,'" the report said. "Nearly three years and billions of taxpayer dollars later, Americans have received scant return from President Obama's investment."
There aren't any definitive statistics on how many green jobs have been created by the Obama administration. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is putting together a survey and will release an estimate on green jobs created by Obama by mid-2012.
In written testimony, BLS Commissioner Keith Hill told the Oversight Committee that the agency would include "jobs in business establishments that produce goods or provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources" as well as "green technologies and practice jobs."
Democrats on the panel released their own report today outlining green jobs in the districts of each of the members of the committee. The report points to findings of a July 2011 study by the Brookings Institution that says the "clean energy economy" employs 2.7 million people.
"There's not one scintilla of evidence … of the Obama administration's effort destroying jobs," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md.
The Republicans will turn their attention back to the collapse of Solyndra on Friday when company executives Brian Harrison and W.G. Stover appear before an Energy and Commerce Subcommittee. The company is under FBI investigation, and both executives have indicated they will plead the Fifth Amendment and decline to answer questions.
