I listened to Rick Perry give his Presidential announcement speech today. He bragged about job growth in Texas and claimed it happened because he cut state government spending. That's an interesting fantasy, but the reality is that much of the job growth in Texas is a direct result of President Obama's green stimulus bill.
According to Recovery.gov, Texas has been awarded over $16 Billion in stimulus funds. Only California received more. Much of that is funding clean energy and efficiency projects. One of many examples is the State Energy Conservation Office award of over $218 million in grants to fund energy efficiency and distributed renewable generation projects around the state, including green job training programs. To give another, Duke Energy received $21 million for an energy storage project at a Texas wind farm.
One of the largest grant recipients is CenterPoint Energy, which was awarded $200 million to install an energy-saving smart grid system in Houston, including 2.2 million smart meters. Since then, CenterPoint was given an award for their economic development efforts with a letter of support from Governor Rick Perry.
Apparently, Rick Perry does support government spending for job creation and he likes it even better when other states pay the bill.
Wind is the fastest growing energy source in America, and Texas has the most wind capacity of any state in the union. This isn't the random work of the market's magical invisible hand. Obama's green stimulus bill boosted the industry by including a wind energy production tax credit and other clean energy incentives.
No state has benefited more from pro-wind policies than Texas. It includes the nation's top five largest wind farms and is the first state to surpass more than 10,000MW of wind installations. In 2010 that resulted in 8,000-9,000 direct and indirect wind power jobs, including manufacturing facilities, plus $30 million in lease payments to Texas landowners.
Wind power came through for Texas during recent rolling blackouts. High temperatures stopped some power plants from working, including coal and natural gas plants. In contrast, wind stayed reliable, providing more megawatts than the industry is expected to supply during peak summer demand.
To be fair, the Texas legislature deserves partial credit for enacting a renewable energy portfolio standard in 1999. It mandates that the state ramp up its use of renewable energy and currently the targets are expected to be met ahead of schedule. President Obama has made a similar proposal for the nation. Once again, the solution that's working best directly contradicts Perry's free-market-anarchy rhetoric in campaign speeches.
Dear Governor Perry:
On behalf of the environmental community I'd like to say, "you're welcome!" We're glad that you were able to create thousands of green jobs in Texas with the help of federal and state incentives. Environmental groups worked hard to enact those policies. You may thank us in return by dropping the fantasy explanation for job growth and start showing support for the green job stimulus spending policies that worked so well for Texas.