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Richardson pushes green economy agenda
Gov. Bill Richardson (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
Gov. Bill Richardson has signed an executive order that he hopes will help the state become a leader in renewable energy exports.
“A comprehensive green economy is critical to the future of New Mexico and will lead our state into a new era of economic vitality and stability,” Richardson said in a news release. “Today I am outlining a clear path to ensure our state capitalizes economically and environmentally on our abundant renewable resources and assets.”
The governor’s Green Jobs Cabinet recommended five goals for the state, which include:
• To become a leader in renewable energy exports.
• To become the center of the North American solar industry. This includes everything from research and development to manufacturing to the installation of solar elements in buildings.
• To lead the nation in “Green Grid” innovation.
• To continue being a leader in green building and energy efficiency.
• To have an educational system that prepares New Mexico students for jobs in green technologies.
Richardson’s executive order, signed at SCHOTT Solar’s manufacturing plant in Albuquerque, lays out a wide scope of directives to reach these goals, and involves several state agencies. After signing the order, Richardson announced the release of the New Mexico Green Jobs Guidebook. The guidebook provides an overview of green occupations, their education requirements, and resources available at New Mexico colleges and universities.
Richardson announced he will seek legislation to expand the state’s Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit during the upcoming legislative session. The expansion will double the available credit for solar generators to 1 million megawatt hours. The Production Tax Credit expansion is critical for ensuring that there is an in-state market for the products from the growing cluster of solar manufacturers like SCHOTT, Emcore and Signet Solar.
The Green Jobs Cabinet report is available online.
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Playing the Same old Song, Different Day
You have to remember where this and other suggestions are coming from. Richardson is trying to find ways to raise taxes by telling the people that it will mean jobs if we accept Green Economy programs. It is not going to amount to anything but higher taxes to pay for the jobs and promotion of this Green Economy. Richardson knows that it will not work but he has no idea what will work.
To truly straighten out this state it will take people will look for the true answers and not pie in the sky. It is another fallacy like global warming. If we are moving toward global warming, why is each winter becoming colder and colder in all regions of the earth. Richardson doesn’t have a clue about what is going on as far as the state and the environment, nor does Denish have any conception of how to truly run the state without sending it into bankruptcy.
Bill is a waste of time and energy to even listen to. He hasn’t a clue what he is doing nor does he understand what he is talking about. The only thing he does well is cronyism and corruption. While he waxes eloquently about green jobs, his political hack secretaries, like Curry and Prukop (now resigned), continue to destroy jobs in the energy sector that produces the majority of our tax base by regulating them out of the state.
This EcoElite is one of the wise LEADERS who helped get NM into financial chaos that has made independent people into state dependents and we are to believe that more of the same will provide prosperity?
The so-called green economy is a farce. The DOE funded Los Alamos to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars for geothermal energy research. Sandia practically invented windmills. Both laboratories received million so dollars for solar energy research. This research has been going on for about 40 years but one would think from what we read these days that green energy just arrived on the scene. Major reason they have not taken hold to any extent is cost.
The fact of the matter is that none of these sources can supply enough energy at a competitive cost to supply an industrial nation such as ours. They can compete with coal and oil only with government subsidies which is not the way to go. The country is in the red, New Mexico is in the red, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and who knows how many other municipalities in NM are in the red so we are in no position to subsidize anything.
Fiscal sanity demands we let the free market determine energy sources and we need to stop listening to the green bigots. Nuclear energy could be a big valuable contributor but here again the chicken littles refuse to even consider it. Algae or used fat from McDonlald’s as sources is laughable. Transportation-a large consumer or energy- will require oil/gasoline for decades longer.
If one is to look at the SWOT study of the Governor Richardson Green Economy Report published by our Green Job Cabinet on page 13 you will see that one of New Mexico’s weaknesses is that we have “cheap coal fired electricity that makes renewable energy comparitively expensive”. I wonder why the Governor and this cabinet failed to help bring new business into the state that might have reduced environmental impacts of this “cheap” energy source. Clean coal technologies are important too, not just solar and wind power.
The report also points out in great detail how green energy jobs have grown so much faster than other jobs in the state. This information also appears skewed in that there are many more employees in other sectors. You start from a very low base of employment in the “clean energy” sector and if you add a few jobs it looks like dramatic growth, but the nominal impacts are small relative to total employment..
The report also fails to indicate how the Governors other energy policies have reduced employment in the non-green energy sector, a.ka. Oil and gas. Several oil and gas jobs have gone away.
A green agenda might include helping our existing energy sources rather than pushing a subsidized alternative which requires tax credits or other welfare transfers.
The same can be said for the film industry..another one of Governor Richarson’s pet projects that costs tax payers a bundle.
Thankfully we can afford to spend a dollar to create a job which produces 10 cents, otherwise we’d have to rely on old fashioned taxation on oil and gas production to fund a significant part of the state’s budget. You can trust my calculations, it’ll work out great.
How many cabinets does this guy have? I’ve learned to be afraid when he starts using words like, “Bold steps”, or “Bold action”, or “clearly defined … (pick a topic)” .. or when he starts waving around more tax credits … how much do THOSE things cost us? What will a million megawatt tax credit cost us? There have been several wind farms built already … are they connected to the grid? And … an educational system to support green technologies? I read recently that the State is now last in math and science – behind Mississippi … how is this green stuff supposed to work here if we can’t cypher and understand electrons?