Obama’s green jobs went up in smoke

by CalWatchdog Staff | October 30, 2012 7:20 am

Oct. 30, 2012

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Katy Grimes: The phony green jobs that I have been writing about for several years are just another inconvenient truth in this administration.

The U.S. Labor Department’s Inspector General just released a report[2] on Friday revealing that President Obama’s green jobs training program went up in smoke.

Bad news from the government always is released on Friday.

In addition to a failed stimulus program, the Obama green jobs program wasted another $500 million dollars from taxpayers.

The report[3] found:

In the three and a half years since the stimulus bill was signed, the green jobs program has only placed 11,613 individuals into jobs that have been retained for more than 6 months. That’s only 16 percent of the total goal.

Only 30,857, or 38 percent, were placed into any green jobs at all.

Even with these damning numbers, the Labor Department put out its own statement disagreeing with the Inspector General: “This report does not take into account that nearly half of the grants are still active and thousands of workers are still participating in the program,” a statement said.

The Obama administration’s plan was to create 700,000 green jobs in clean tech energy.

The bad news

According to the newly released report requested by Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa[4] and Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan[5], the report revealed that the Department of Labor has further squandered taxpayer money since the program was flagged by the IG last year.

“The green jobs training program belongs in the long list of the Administration’s bad investments including the bankruptcies of Solyndra, Beacon Power, Abound, and just this month, A123,” said Issa. “Not only was the program poorly thought-out, mismanaged and dysfunctional, but it served as a slush fund to reward friends of the Obama Administration. Millions of dollars went to groups like the National Council of La Raza[6], the Blue Green Alliance and the US Steelworkers union,” Issa stated.

Here is the Congressional hearing where Issa learned what a green job really is:

Worse news

DOL trained more criminals than veterans: 9 percent of the people who received training (about 10,000 individuals) had criminal records, while 7 percent were veterans.

Poor results: Out of a target of 81,254, grantees collectively reported 30,857 participants (38 percent) entered employment

Of the 81,354 participants who completed training, 42,322 (52 percent) already had jobs.

Of the 81,354 participants who completed training through the Green Jobs program, 38,366 received 5 days or less of training, of which 17,374 received only 1 day of training.

According to the Inspector General, “Grantees were authorized to train incumbent workers who needed training to secure full-time employment, advance their careers, or retain their current jobs. However, for the 81 incumbent workers we identified in our sample, we found no evidence that they needed green job training for any of these purposes.”

“The sampled grantees were unable to provide documentation for 24 percent of sampled participants reported as entered employment,” The IG reported. “Moreover, they could not provide documentation for 33 percent of sampled participants reported as entering training-related employment and 44 percent of sampled participants tested for retention.”

I really hate to say “I told ya so,” so instead I”ll just ask all of you greenies how it feels to have so much smoke blown up your skirts?

The Inspector General’s report is HERE[7].

Source URL: https://calwatchdog.com/2012/10/30/green-jobs-went-up-in-smoke/

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