Submitted by OCULUS, Sep 10, 2008 11:44

Real Energy Jobs vs. Regulatory Vapor Green Jobs. Coincidentally, a new report from a U Mass labor-oriented think tank just came out proclaiming the billions of dollars that could arise from the cap and trade on carbon dioxide. It claims that New York could be in line to get $7 billion or so to dedicate to new government-directed green jobs. Anybody who knows the European model of this program knows this is eco-fantasy at its worst. Mr. Stossel's article is a breath of real fresh air in this overheated climate of government-mandated climate-change change. What I'd like to see is someone run the numbers--as already alluded to by Gov. Palin--on the PROVEN high-paying jobs that would arise from offshore drilling for natural gas and oil. She knows these numbers and she should start making the case. Candidate McCain should take a further step and ask each state how they might contribute to new exploration or alternative energy development, rather than having the federal government prescribe and incentivize how and which alternatives are pursued--by the tax code. As for States' drilling and contribution to a national goal, sure the coastal states can contribute to new exploration and discovery and the great mid west can contribute to biofuels and perhaps hardware manufacturing. But, curiously, nobody is asking New York or other Great Lakes States how much natural gas they could contribute to such a realistic, bootstrap energy discovery program. Canada has hundreds of gas wells in operation in Lake Ontario alone. What are we waiting for? As any well-rounded national energy plan is crafted, let's concentrate on the energy that will result from exploration, not the dollars from regulation, and leave the jobs to materialize as they may. And, let's not leave the natural gas and the Great Lakes states out of such a challenge.

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