PERI Study: Ill-Conceived Analysis of Non-Existent Legislation

July 16, 2009

A recent report by Robert Pollin, James Heintz and Heidi Garrett-Peltier of the Political Economy Research Institute purports to study the “economic transformation” the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) will harmoniously bring about. The analysis begins with the three “objectives that will define the entire enterprise” and concludes with the need “to promote an aggressive policy agenda now to defeat global warming.” This tips the reader to the fact that this is not an objective analysis. However, the suspension of logic and analytical inconsistency is a disservice to policy makers.

The study investigates the question of how many jobs would be needed if $150 billion were invested in clean energy over the next 10 years versus how many jobs would be needed if the same amount were invested in carbon-based energy industries. This is not any policy currently being debated today, and therefore is irrelevant to the debate. Secondly, this tells (more…)