CEOs see green energy policies preserving U.S. jobs
GOLETA, California (Reuters) - It's not often you hear executives from the biggest U.S. industries and a Republican governor clamoring for stronger regulations on climate change. But that's exactly what they want.
Without clear climate change policy, not only will manufacturing jobs be siphoned off to overseas rivals investing heavily in renewable energy sources, but U.S. companies won't have any clear direction on where best to invest their money in new capital projects to keep in line with regulations, top executives said.
They criticized the United States government sharply for failing to invest in new energy technologies.
They also blasted officials for neglecting to create aggressive energy efficiency standards and failing to extend tax subsidies for clean energy sources such as wind and solar -- measures they say would create jobs for Americans.
"The entire chemical industry and manufacturing sector has lost 3.1 million jobs due to a lack of a coherent energy policy," Dow Chemical Co Chief Executive Andrew Liveris said in an interview at a Wall Street Journal conference near Santa Barbara. "We have a manufacturing crisis in this country ... The leadership of this country needs to step up."
Robert Lukefahr, president of BP Plc's BP Alternative Energy North America added, "We don't know how to deploy capital when the rules change year on year."
To make up for the U.S. government's lack of regulations on climate change, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said his state had been forced to pursue its own aggressive environmental standards, some of which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has denied.
"Why is the state of California creating it's own regulation? It's because Washington is not," Schwarzenegger said at the conference.
Improved energy efficiency standards for buildings and appliances; more research and development into biomass, clean coal and other technologies; and opening more U.S. acreage to oil exploration would all help create jobs, Dow's Liveris said.
At a separate conference in Pittsburgh, experts said U.S. workers are already finding jobs building wind turbines, installing solar panels and retrofitting buildings with stronger insulation to conserve energy.
Kathleen McGinty, secretary of Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection, said companies like Spain's Gamesa Corporacion Tecnologica -- which makes windmill turbine blades -- have created jobs in a state once dominated by the steel and coal industries.
"We are a hard-hat, blue-collar, steel-tipped boots kind of place, and maybe we have something to offer," McGinty said.
But U.S. executives said their companies should be the ones building the nation's "green economy" and creating such jobs, with help from the federal government.
General Electric Co CEO Jeffrey Immelt said at the Wall Street Journal conference on Wednesday that tax credits due to expire this year were critical to supporting the U.S. renewable energy industry.
GE would sell its wind turbines and other green products in Turkey, Mexico and other nations if they were not purchased here, he added. Continued...
