Interview with Bob Pollin for My Book on Clean Energy Job Creation

I’ve been preparing for my upcoming interview with Bob Pollin, Economics Professor at UMass Amherst, as the basis for my next book – this one on Clean Energy Job Creation. Here’s a list of questions I hope to cover. Please feel free to suggest any new ones.

Thanks so much for taking the time with me here, Bob. I have a few questions I’d like to ask. Btw, I’m not one of these guys who goes into a project trying to prove what he’s ~~already~~ assumed. I DO have a set of beliefs here, but I actually hope I’m wrong.

Let’s start with a clarification of “job creation.” I suppose we mean the net increase in the number of full time jobs for people living within the US borders. Is that right?

And obviously, this is a heated issue right now, which is part of the reason I want to move ahead with this book project. Forget about renewables for the moment. Considering the market factors affecting employment generally, what do you see as the short-, medium- and long-term prognosis? Why?

When I was a kid, we learned about the Phillips Curve, which relates employment and inflation, and suggests that full employment creates some level of inflation. One might suggest that this somehow no longer applies, as we have rampant unemployment, but essentially no inflation. What can you tell me about that?

Btw, why is there no inflation? Isn’t our money supply going through the roof?

Before we get to the issue of job creation in renewables, are there any other large concepts in macroeconomics that are important to the discussion that my readers and I should understand? Trade imbalances? National debt? Currency valuation? Interest rates?

OK, let’s get to job creation, which appears to me a very complicated subject, as it comes with so many moving parts. Let me ask you about the following:

The number of new jobs created by renewable energy is obviously a function of the percent penetration of renewables are we talking about, right? People talk about 275,000 new jobs, but that seems to be tied to a rate of adoption that is fairly modest. Right?

How many of what types of jobs do you see in this space? In what time-frame?

Why? What’s driving this? What’s limiting it?

Capital formation in clean energy in the US has been pretty feeble of late. Why is that?

What would you do if you were given the power?

Are there any scenarios where the economy could get even worse and we’d wind up with something like the New Deal here?

Do you think there is fairly broad transparency here, or do you think that Big Energy is exerting influence in covert way?

Are you at all concerned about the Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. The Federal Elections Commission, in which corporations can spend without limit to influence the democratic process?

I’ve become particularly interested in the issue of subsidies, as they seem to be so critical in forming the climate in which private investors will climb on board the clean energy bandwagon. It appears that the reason this is so complicated is that subsidies take many forms, some of them (deliberately?) hidden. I’ve written about the imperative to create a level playing field, but this conversation is an opportunity to see if I really know what I’m talking about. It seems that Big Energy is supported by things like:

Construction bonds at low interest rates or tax-free
Research-and-development programs at low or no cost
Assuming the legal risks of exploration and development in a company’s stead
Below-cost loans with lenient repayment conditions
Income tax breaks, especially featuring obscure provisions in tax laws designed to receive little congressional oversight when they expire
Sales tax breaks – taxes on petroleum products are lower than average sales tax rates for other goods
Giving money to international financial institutions (the U.S. has given tens of billions of dollars to the World Bank and U.S. Export-Import Bank to encourage oil production internationally, according to Friends of the Earth)
The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Construction and protection of the nation’s highway system
Relaxing the amount of royalties to be paid – apparently, we get about 40% of revenues from oil on public land vs. 60% – 65% in most other countries
Not forcing the industry to deal with the “externalities” – healthcare costs, long-term environmental damage, etc. — costs that are becoming increasingly clear and subject to quantification

Is this true? How should it change? How did it happen? What’s most likely to happen here? Isn’t it, to a degree, self-limiting, as the country will be so completely destroyed economically that Americans will eventually notice?

Let’s talk a bit about the “externalities.” When I would bring this up a few years ago, please would look at me is if I were crazy. How, we see reports from think tanks on the $63 billion we’re spending annually treating asthma, lung cancer, and so forth. Fewer people look at with with blank stares now, but I think we’re still a long way from internalizing those externalities. What do you think?

What’s happening outside the US, where many countries are taking aggressive action to move to renewables? A friend of mine (Bill Paul) says that it’s simply building jobs in other countries and that our international Fortune 25 companies, the GEs of the world, are indifferent to where their products are made, sold, and deployed. Is that true?

What brown jobs will be lost (e.g., coal mining) simultaneously to the build-up of green jobs? Obviously, this is a problem, where you have coal miners appealing that they need to stay employed. Do we have the political stomach to deal with any job loss?

What will be the impact of all the green job training in the community colleges?

Where should I go for more information on this subject? Different points of view? People who can speak both pro and against Big Energy?