A $230,000 Taxpayer-Funded ‘Green Jobs’ Website, but No Jobs Listed
Mike Brownfield /
How’s this for a waste of taxpayer money? According to Energy& Environment News, the Department of Energy is paying $230,000 for a website to promote career paths in the green energy sector–and it has, ironically, prohibited the listing of actual jobs in the industry. Here’s the report:
The Department of Energy has awarded a $230,000 contract to the Association of Energy Services Professionals to develop a website on energy efficiency jobs — but the agency has prohibited the listing of actual position openings.
Instead, the website will include information on what training and education is needed to nab a job, said Suzanne Jones, AESP’s vice president of marketing. In lieu of a job bank, AESP will provide 40 to 50 “very distinct” job descriptions in the energy efficiency industry, along with the education and training needed for such jobs.
A DOE spokesman did not return a request for comment in time for publication. The website — called “My Energy Gateway” — will launch in April 2012, according to AESP.
It probably shouldn’t be surprising that a “green jobs website” doesn’t actually list any green jobs. After all, President Barack Obama’s green dream has proven to be a bust. The President made green jobs a centerpiece of his Administration, and he hailed them as the future of this U.S. economy. The trouble is, those jobs didn’t materialize, despite a massive infusion of federal spending–including billions in the 2009 stimulus bill.
Even The New York Times wrote, “federal and state efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed” and Obama’s goal of creating 5 million new green jobs within 10 years is a “pipe dream.”
Maybe the Obama Administration is operating under “The Field of Dreams” theory — if they build a website, the jobs will come. A better strategy would be to get the federal government out of the way and let the free market thrive instead of spending taxpayer money on quarter-million-dollar PR projects.
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